Shades of Gray
by just your regular fangirl
Summary: Touko White always thought that the world was black and white - evil and good, to put it simply. But when she sets off on her own journey, she's about to discover that the world - and its people - are much more complicated than she thought. Novelization of BW. Hints of Chessshipping, Dualrivalshipping, Ferriswheelshipping.
1. Prologue: Farewell

"You're really leaving, aren't you?"

Touko frowned, looking up at her best friend, Hilbert. He was dressed in a new trainer's outfit, and there was a cap on his brown hair. There was a pokemon in his arms, a reddish-orange coloured, pig-like one. _Tepig_, he'd called it._ This is my new pokemon, tepig._ It was cute, she'd admit, and looked quite strong, but at that moment she hated it. Hated it, because it was the reason that her best friend was leaving.

This morning she had woken up to hear from her mother that Hilbert was leaving. Touko had known for a while that he was going to leave sometime soon, but she hadn't known it would've been today. She'd immediately dressed and ran outside to say her goodbyes before he'd left.

Now, Hilbert leaned over and hugged her, smiling sadly. "I'm really sorry I'm leaving without you and Bianca and Cheren - "

"It's not your fault," she said quickly. And it really wasn't. He was fourteen (he'd just celebrated his birthday a few months ago), and she and her other two friends were thirteen. When a kid turned thirteen, they were allowed to write a short test, which would determine if they were prepared for a pokemon journey. Professor Juniper would then select the three kids that she felt were most prepared, based on their test results, and give them starter pokemon.

Hilbert had taken the test when he was thirteen, but had to wait a few months or so for the professor to decide and prepare everything. He had been selected, but a day before he was supposed to set off on his journey, he came down with a sickness. He'd been sick for ages, and had only recently gotten better. Touko remembered how afraid she had been when he was sick. It scared her, thinking that he was going to die.

"Besides, we're going to be able to take our tests soon," Touko added brightly. "Then we can join you! Maybe we could travel together!"

"Definitely," he responded, grinning. They both knew that it would be at least a few months until Touko and Bianca and Cheren would be able to leave Nuvema Town, assuming they even got selected. By then, Hilbert could've already reached the third, or even fourth gym. They wouldn't be able to catch up to him, unless he waited for them. But neither of them voiced it.

"Hilbert!" a voice cried. Touko turned around to see Bianca running towards them, Cheren following. The blonde girl stopped in front of them and said with a sniffle, "We'll miss you a lot, Hilbert."

"Don't look so down," the brunet boy responded, smiling at her. "I'll come back to visit if you guys don't end up getting selected. But I'm sure you will."

"I certainly hope I've done enough research," Cheren added, coming up to them. "I think I know everything we need to know."

Hilbert laughed lightly, along with Touko. "I'm sure you do, Cheren. You're the smartest out of the four of us."

There was no denying that, and Touko managed to grin at her friend. "Yeah, Cheren. There's no chance you won't get selected."

They laughed and joked for a while, before the tepig in Hilbert's arms started to get impatient. It started snorting out fire from its nose, and said, "Te, tepig!" Then it started to wriggle around.

"Whoa, buddy," Hilbert laughed, gently stroking the pokemon. "I promise we'll set out soon, okay?"

"You shouldn't be delayed because of us," Touko said quietly. "Have fun on your journey."

"Yeah, explore lots!" Bianca chirped, looking excited.

"Good luck," Cheren finished simply.

Hilbert looked like he didn't know what to say for a few moments, but then the boy grinned widely. "I will. I'll write to you guys if I get the chance, I promise. And you guys promise me you'll get selected!"

"We will!" Bianca said determinedly.

Touko forced a smile on her face, and said, "See ya later, Hilbert." She hated how sad she was feeling. She still had Bianca and Cheren, didn't she? And she really appreciated their company. Besides, Hilbert was excited and wanted to leave, so what was she doing by making him feel bad about it? That wasn't how friends were supposed to treat each other._ I have to learn to be able to let go of things_, Touko thought to herself.

"Alright guys, I'll see you later too," Hilbert said, leaning over. He hugged each of them tightly, and stepped back, adjusting the cap on his head with a grin. He let tepig jump down from his arms to follow him, and as the small pokemon snorted its goodbye, Touko smiled softly.

"Come on, tepig! We've got a long way to go!" came Hilbert's voice, near the exit to Route 1. He was standing by the large sign that read "Welcome to Nuvema Town", and was waving over at them. "Bye, guys!"

Touko gently stroked his tepig one last time, and stood up as it ran over to where Hilbert was standing. He didn't turn back as he ran through the exit, his tepig following him. Soon his figure had faded away, and a heavy silence fell upon the three.

"I'll miss him," Bianca spoke up. She was sniffling again, and Cheren shot her an uncomfortable glance. Touko could tell from his look that he didn't know what he could do to comfort her, though he wanted to. A slight smirk appeared on her face, but it quickly melted away as the truth sank in.

Hilbert had left. He wouldn't be back for a very, very long time. This wasn't like the times when they would sneak out to Route 1 to pretend they were trainers, and then sneak back into Nuvema Town. But now, one of them wasn't coming back.

This time, it was for real.

A hand on Touko's shoulder brought her back to the present. She looked up to see Professor Juniper, who was smiling softly down at her. "He'll be fine," the professor said gently, eyes looking kind. Touko wanted to believe her, but she was afraid that something would happen to Hilbert out there, and they wouldn't know. Maybe she was just being too paranoid. Hilbert was more than capable of managing himself.

"Thanks," was all she could say, as she smiled back at Professor Juniper in gratitude.

"No problem," the professor responded, winking. "You'll be taking your tests before you know it." She turned to leave, nodding to Cheren and Bianca as she passed.

Touko's heart felt lighter, and she turned for one last look at Route 1. _Hang in there, Hilbert. We'll catch up to you soon_, she vowed silently.

* * *

**AN**: One of my biggest issues with writing long, multiple chapter stories is that I end up losing interest in them. (As you can notice in one of my other pokemon fanfics.) So for this story I pre-wrote some chapters to see if I stayed interested, and I am so far! :) Pokemon White was the first pokemon game I've ever played through, therefore I'm more familiar with the region, pokemon, and plot. (Though this story will be based off Black, not White.) So I decided to give a novelization another try.

I used the name Touko instead of Hilda, because I don't really like the name Hilda, sorry. Hilbert, Cheren, and Bianca are still the same since I don't usually use the Japanese names (and Cheren doesn't have a Japanese name). Like the summary mentions, there will be hints of shippings, but I'll try not to center it all around romance. Constructive criticism is welcome! ~


	2. Chapter 1: Journey's Beginning

"...The pokemon are right here, inside this box."

"Thank you so much, Professor Juniper. The kids have been extremely excited for this day since Hilbert left on his journey half a year ago."

"I'm sure they'll all do fine on their journeys. After all, they _did _excel in their tests necessary to become trainers..."

The voices carried on faintly, causing a sleeping Touko to wake up and shift in her bed. She let loose a loud yawn, and blearily rubbed her eyes. The voices downstairs continued, and she recognized Professor Juniper's and her mother's voice.

_Oh, right!_ she thought suddenly to herself. _That's right! We're getting our pokemon today!_

The brunette shot up in bed, and decided to dress as quickly as she could while still looking presentable. She didn't care how she looked in front of Bianca and Cheren, but she didn't want to make a bad impression in front of the professor. She studied her clothes for a few minutes, debating what to wear, before deciding.

On went her favourite outfit - a white tank top, black vest, and a pair of denim shorts. She thought it was simple, but also decently nice-looking. Matching black and pink wristbands which she always wore was a must, too. Then, last but not least, her favourite pink and white cap, which she put on after tying up her bushy brown hair into a messy ponytail. She checked her reflection in the mirror. _Perfect, _Touko thought happily.

Slipping her feet into a pair of fuzzy pink slippers, she headed down the stairs, hearing Professor Juniper's voice again.

"Hilbert has actually helped me out a lot," the professor was saying. "He's very intent on discovering all kinds of pokemon. I hear he wants to travel to other regions as well."

"I'm happy he's doing so well," said her mother, smiling. "He's always been Touko's role model, and they've known each other since they were young."

Touko walked quietly into the kitchen, and her mother turned to spot her with a big grin. "And here's my daughter!" she announced cheerfully. "Touko, say hello to Professor Juniper."

Touko spotted a blue box in Professor Juniper's hands as she waved, and her heart started beating faster in excitement._ The pokemon must be in there!_ she thought. _Oh, I can't wait..._

She smiled as the professor introduced herself. Though Professor Juniper's lab was in Nuvema Town (where she and her friends lived), they didn't see the professor much. She was always travelling to different cities and towns, studying pokemon in different areas of Unova. They rarely saw her out in Nuvema Town. The last time Touko had spoken to the professor was when Hilbert had left on his journey, quite a while ago.

"So, Touko, I must be heading back to my lab now," Professor Juniper continued. "The pokemon are in the box, which I'll be leaving here. When you and your friends have finished choosing your pokemon, I'll trust that you three will head to my lab where we'll talk a bit. Then you'll be free to set off on your journeys."

Touko nodded with a big grin on her face. Suddenly, she had another question.

"Does that mean we can't see Hilbert when we're on our journeys? If he's going to another region?" she asked, feeling slightly disappointed. The boy had been her best friend before she'd met Cheren and Bianca, and he was practically her older brother. She wanted to see his pokemon, too, and his tepig. Maybe it'd even evolved into an emboar by now! At least a pignite, though, probably. She wondered what other pokemon he'd caught, too.

Professor Juniper smiled at her.

"Actually, I have good news for you. I told Hilbert you three were going to be getting your pokemon a while ago, and he said he'd be back in Nuvema Town this morning. I think he wants to join you three for your journey for a little while, as a guide. He should be here soon."

Touko's smile brightened. "Thank you, Professor Juniper!"

"No problem, Touko. See you later," the professor responded, nodding to her mother. "Thank you too." They shook hands, and Professor Juniper placed the box down onto a nearby table, then left. The door swung closed, and Touko ran over to the box.

"I'm so excited, mom!" she said enthusiastically. "And I can't wait to see Hilbert again!"

Her mother laughed and said in a teasing tone, "I know, sweetie. Don't you think you're acting too childish for a thirteen year-old, though?"

"Whatever," said Touko, sticking her tongue out at her mother. But she hugged her afterwards to show that she didn't actually mean it.

There was a knock on the door, and Touko ran to open it. Cheren stood in the doorway, somehow managing to look serious. His black hair was neatly combed, and he wore a blue jacket on top of a white shirt, and black pants. His usual pair of glasses were on, too. As Touko opened her mouth to say something, his gaze slid past her to rest on the box Professor Juniper had left.

"So those are the pokemon?" he asked, still looking serious.

"Yup," she responded, grinning. "Oh, and lighten up, will you? You don't have to look so serious all the time."

He shrugged and stepped in. "Is Bianca here yet?"

Touko rolled her eyes. "What kind of question is _that_? Nope."

Bianca was known for being late, well, tardy. She never arrived on time, whether she was a minute late, or an hour late. Touko had gotten used to it by now, and so had Cheren.

Oh well, sometimes you just had to hope, right?

"Hilbert should be arriving soon as well," her mother spoke up, smiling at Cheren. "Good to see you again, Cheren. Which starter are you thinking of picking?"

"I'm thinking of oshawott or tepig," he answered. "I like that tepig has fighting type moves as well, which should be useful for the second gym, but I'm quite fond of water types. Samurott seems pretty powerful."

"I chose an oshawott when I was a girl," said Touko's mother, and as they started talking, Touko leaned against the window and peered outside for any sign of Bianca. She wasn't expecting to see their blonde friend for a while, but maybe she wouldn't be too late for once.

"What starter are you thinking of picking, honey?" Her mother directed the question towards Touko, and she turned around to face them.

"I'm not telling," she answered, smirking. "It's a secret."

Cheren rolled his eyes and said, "It won't be for long."

"You'll see," was all she said, before turning back to the window. Cheren and her mother continued to talk, while she fell silent again.

"You two can wait upstairs," suggested her mother after a while with a knowing smile. She knew Bianca just as well as Touko and Cheren did, having known her since they were two. So she also knew just as well as they did how late Bianca tended to be. "I'll send Bianca up when she arrives."

"Sure," Touko said, shrugging. Her mother led the way up the stairs and into her room, and Touko grabbed the box on her way upstairs, setting it down on her table.

"I'll send Bianca up soon," her mother promised, smiling. "I'm sure she won't be long."

Touko waved goodbye as she headed downstairs, and pointed at the chair in her room. "Have a seat," she offered, nodding at Cheren.

He sat down without a word, and looked out the window, probably keeping watch for Bianca, while Touko examined her room. She hadn't really bothered cleaning it lately, knowing that soon she wouldn't be needing it anymore while she went on her journey. It was relatively clean, though. At the far corner of her room was her bed. She hadn't bothered making her bed, so her purple sheets were scattered around on her bedspread. She also had a flatscreen T.V, and a laptop on her desk which she sometimes used. A bookshelf leaning against the wall contained all her favourite pokemon classics, including novels like "The Girl Who Dreamed". (A classic story about a girl who was a nobody, and dreamed of becoming a pokemon champion, who despite being nobody, accomplished her goal in the end.)

There were also some picture books from when she was little. Touko's favourite picture books had been the "Eevee" series, a series in which an eevee evolved into one of the eeveelutions per book. Her favourite had been "Eevee and the Moss Rock", where the eevee became a leafeon after discovering a Moss Rock in Pinwheel Forest (her favourite evolution of eevee, by the way).

A groan from Cheren jolted her out of her thoughts, and the brunette turned quickly towards him, looking curious.

"I can't believe Bianca's late," he muttered, and Touko raised an eyebrow in response, giving the black-haired boy a funny look.

"You can't believe?" she repeated, sounding skeptical.

Cheren rolled his eyes. "I mean, I can believe, but you know what I mean. Like, how could she be late for something as important as getting our pokemon?" He sounded like he thought the very idea was scandalous.

Touko giggled. "She's always late. Hey, remember that time when we had a surprise birthday party for her, and she showed up late? We were expecting her to come on time, so when she was supposed to come we jumped out but she wasn't there. Then we had to scramble back to our hiding spots, but she saw us before we could - "

"Don't remind me," her friend groaned, burying his face in his hands. "That was terrible."

They heard the ring of a doorbell from downstairs, and Touko shot up from where she was sitting on her bed. "That must be Bianca!" she exclaimed excitedly.

Sure enough, a few moments later, they heard the flustered voice of their friend talking rapidly. There was a pause, and then there was the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs. Bianca came into view, flinging herself at Touko, capturing the brunette in a tight hug. "I'm so sorry I'm late!" she cried immediately.

Touko returned the hug, smiling. "Don't worry about it."

The blonde was dressed in a long orange and white dress, with a light green beret on her short hair. She was much more nicely dressed than usual. Personally Touko didn't like the thought of wearing a dress on a pokemon journey (it sounded inconvenient - what if you had to run?), but maybe that was just her.

Bianca broke the hug and ran over to hug Cheren as well. Touko smirked as she saw the black-haired boy blush slightly, and he scowled at her in return. Their silent exchange was missed by Bianca, who pulled away from the hug with a grin.

"So are those the pokemon?" she asked, waving her hands around in excitement. "Ooh, ooh, I can't wait! Since they got delivered to your house, Touko, you get first pick!"

"Of course," Cheren grumbled, but he looked slightly amused. "Go on, Touko."

Touko grinned and stepped forwards, reaching for the blue box on the table. A small piece of paper was tied to the box, and she picked it up curiously. "There's a note," she said, scanning over it quickly. "Nothing really. Professor Juniper says we have to settle our choices nicely, and that the pokeball on the left is snivy, the one in the middle is tepig, and the one on the left is oshawott."

She already knew which one she was going to pick. Her heart began pounding, as she took off the cover of the box. Three pokeballs sat on a red cushion, and as Touko placed her hand on one of them, the metal was cold to the touch. She picked it up, and turned it around in her hands. It was no bigger than an orange, and was painted red and white. Her thumb found the release button, and her heart was pounding even faster. She couldn't believe she was holding a _pokeball_, a real pokeball.

"So you're picking oshawott?" Cheren asked, seeing that she had picked up the pokeball on the right. Touko put the pokeball back down onto the cushion, smirking.

"Nope. I'm going for..." Her hand closed around the pokeball on the left, and she picked it up, grinning. "Snivy."

At first Touko had debated between tepig and oshawott, but after doing some research on snivy and serperior, its final evolution, she thought it looked pretty cool. Personally she liked the appearance of its final evolution the most out of the three, but it also seemed pretty strong. (Also, if she ever battled her mother, serperior would have an advantage against her samurott.)

"I'm picking oshawott!" Bianca sang, darting forward. Before Touko or Cheren could react, she'd snatched the pokeball up in her hand, and was releasing her oshawott out. There was a flash of red light, and a blue and white otter-like pokemon appeared on the floor of her bedroom.

"Osha, oshawott!" it said, waving its arms around.

"Aw, it's so, so cute!" Bianca squealed.

_I should probably bring out my snivy, too, _Touko thought. She pressed the release button, and the pokeball opened, her snivy appearing with a flash of red light. "Sni," it said, crossing its arms. It looked just like the pictures, a small and green reptilian pokemon, with a cream coloured underside.

"Who said you could go next?" Cheren grumbled to Bianca, but he stepped forward and took tepig's pokeball without hesitation. "Oh well, I wanted tepig anyways."

Soon his tepig was out too, and all three pokemon studied each other with curious looks. Bianca picked up her oshawott, laughing. "It's so cute!" she gushed. "Look at its little cheeks!" she added, pinching her oshawott's cheeks.

Touko bent down and picked up her snivy. She wished she could tell if it was a male or female, because she had a few nickname ideas in her head already. But as soon as they got to the professor's lab, their new pokedexes would be able to identify genders.

"I have an idea," Bianca said suddenly. She pointed at Touko and grinned. "How about we have a pokemon battle, right here and right now?"

"I don't think that's a good idea - " Cheren started to say, but Touko interrupted him.

"You're on!" she replied confidentially, grinning back. The snivy in her arms lifted its head to look at Bianca's oshawott with a calculating and determined looking stare. Touko could tell her pokemon was a clever one.

"We're in a _bedroom_, for kyurem's sake," the black-haired boy continued, as if trying to reason with the two females. He had no luck, for the two of them completely ignored him and faced each other.

"Oh reshiram," he muttered, clapping a hand to his forehead.

Touko's snivy jumped down from her arms and into the ground, facing Bianca's oshawott with a glare. Touko didn't want to let Bianca take the first move, but she had no idea what moves her snivy knew. She tried thinking back to her research. Uh...was it vine whip or something?

"Snivy, vine whip!" she said, praying her pokemon knew the move. But snivy stood there, not doing anything.

"Oshawott, use water gun!" Bianca squealed, pointing a finger dramatically at snivy. "Go get 'em!"

Nothing happened again. From the side, Cheren rolled his eyes and said, "They only know tackle right now. And some other move like leer or something."

Oh.

"Snivy, use tackle," Touko commanded. She knew snivy were very fast pokemon, so hers should be able to out speed oshawott. The green pokemon ran forward nimbly, and as it did, a vine grew from its body. It smacked Bianca's pokemon with the vine, before leaping back out of oshawott's range.

"You are not going to get away with that!" Bianca cried loudly. With another dramatic finger point, she shouted, "Oshawott, get snivy with your own tackle!"

Touko waited as the otter pokemon sped towards her snivy, waiting for the right moment. As oshawott neared, she said, "Snivy, dodge now!"

But she'd shouted too late. Snivy leaped up just as oshawott smacked its head into it. The green pokemon cried out as it was flung back from the impact, hitting the ground. Touko clenched her fists. _Ugh, I screwed that up hard_.

Her snivy was soon back on its feet though, looking more tired, but also more determined than ever. Oshawott looked just as tired, and the two pokemon faced each other again. Touko considered her choices. Both pokemon were tired, so they would both move more slowly. That increased oshawott's chances of dodging if snivy was tired, but maybe oshawott wouldn't be able to move fast enough still.

"Oshawott, finish snivy off with another tackle!" Bianca said, grinning now. Touko didn't know what else to do, so she did the one thing that might work and said, "Snivy, dodge oshawott's attack and use tackle right after!"

She saw her snivy brace itself as oshawott sped towards it, and crossed her fingers. To her relief, her pokemon managed to leap up in the air when oshawott was supposed to hit it. Oshawott stood there, confused, and snivy, still in the air, dropped down while smacking oshawott with its tail. The impact flung both pokemon away, and snivy hit the bookshelf, while oshawott hit the desk. Both pokemon slid down onto the ground, and Touko ran over to her snivy worriedly. Bianca did the same, running to her oshawott.

"Snivy!" Touko cried, picking up her pokemon. Its eyes opened, and she breathed out in relief. "Snivy," it said weakly.

"Oshawott is knocked out," Cheren reported from the other side of the room. "That means snivy is the winner."

"Aw," Bianca pouted. "Oh well. You did really good, Touko. It looks like you and your pokemon have a bond already."

Her praise warmed Touko, and she smiled at her friend. "You too. It was a close battle."

Meanwhile, Cheren was sighing. "Have you guys even looked around the room yet?" He asked in an exasperated tone. "I told you..."

Touko looked up, and her smile faded. Several books had fallen off her bookshelf when snivy hit it, and her chair was knocked over from the impact of a tackle. Her pink carpet was messed up, and the potted plant in her room had been knocked over, soil spilling on the ground. Her desk had also been knocked over. It was chaotic, to say the least.

"Wow!" Bianca exclaimed. "They're so little, but they're so strong!"

"That's not the point," Cheren started to say, but Touko interrupted him.

"They really are!" she replied, grinning. "Wow, I can't wait to see how strong they are once they've evolved!"

Again Cheren clapped a hand to his forehead, rolling his eyes. "I can't believe I'm friends with you two," was all he said.

* * *

"Thanks for the potions, Cheren," Touko said brightly, as her snivy stood up, looking just as strong as before. "I'm glad you're always prepared."

He shrugged. "I should've known something like this would happen."

"Hey, I have an idea!" Bianca said suddenly. She grinned, and clapped her hands in excitement. "Cheren, why don't _you_ battle Touko? I'm sure you'll have no trouble causing no damage to her room."

The black-haired boy frowned thoughtfully. "I'm sure you're right. I bet I'll be fine."

He looked down at his tepig. "Besides, it's not fair if you two get to battle and I don't." He adjusted his glasses, and smirked at Touko. "Ready to go?"

Touko looked down at her snivy, who nodded in determination. "Ready."

The battle was just like the battle with oshawott. Touko pulled a close win, with both pokemon colliding into each other with simultaneous tackles at the end. Snivy collapsed mere seconds after tepig did, but that meant Touko had won, since tepig had fainted first.

Cheren shook his head as he recalled his tepig to his pokeball. "I thought I had it there."

Touko flashed him a grin. "I'm afraid I pulled a win there."

She recalled her snivy to her pokeball, and straightened up. "We should probably head to Professor Juniper's lab now," she suggested. "But first we should apologize to my mom about this mess."

"I'll do that," Bianca said immediately, before hurrying down the stairs. Touko followed, and Cheren went last.

Luckily her mother wasn't angry. She just shook her head and smiled. "I knew there was something going on up there," she laughed. "But I trust that you'll clean it up, Touko?" She fixed her daughter with a firm stare.

The brunette gulped. "Yes mom."

"I'm just kidding," her mother teased. "I'll do it. Now run along to the professor's lab! Touko, don't forget to change into your shoes, and don't forget your new pink bag, okay?"

"Thanks, mom," Touko responded, giving her a grin as she grabbed the pink bag waiting for her on their couch. They'd packed it with all the things she'd need for her journey the night before, and now she slung it onto her shoulder before slipping her feet into her black ankle boots.

"Thank you for having us," Cheren said politely to her mother, before stepping outside. Bianca followed him eagerly, and Touko hugged her mother quickly before following her two friends outside. "Bye, mom!" she shouted as they left.

Her mother smiled softly as she watched the trio run for the lab. "They grow so fast," she said to herself, before she closed the door.

* * *

"Sorry if we're late, professor," Touko panted, as they followed Professor Juniper to the back of the lab. "We had some pokemon battles in my bedroom before we came."

"In your bedroom? Oh my," the professor laughed. "How did it go?"

"Touko won against both me and Cheren," Bianca piped up. "She did really well."

"They were really close battles," Touko said quickly. "It was all thanks to snivy. It did really well."

The professor led them to a room in the back, where she told them to stay while she went into a storage room. She came back quickly with three devices in her hands, and handed one to each of them. Touko studied hers in her hands. The metal was cool, smooth, and shiny. The device had one screen, and was shaped like a rectangle.

"You can slide out the other screen when you want to scan a pokemon," Professor Juniper explained, demonstrating with Touko's. She pressed a button on the side, and the second screen slid out on top of the first, making it longer than it already was.

"Cool!" Touko exclaimed, grinning. "So these are our pokedexes, professor?"

"They automatically scan and record the pokemon we encounter," Cheren said, making Professor Juniper smile.

"You've done your research, haven't you?" The professor said to Cheren. "Well done. He's exactly right. You can also scan any of your pokemon to see things like gender, abilities, health, experience until a level up, and moves. In fact, why don't you three do that right now?"

There was a moment of silence as the tree trainers called out their pokemon. Excitedly, Touko held her pokedex over her snivy. Information began to load on her screen, and she read it quickly.

The information on the top screen she scanned over. It was general information on snivy, and showed its number in the pokedex. The bottom screen told her the stuff she wanted to know more. Her snivy knew the moves tackle and leer, had the ability overgrow, was almost at a level up, and was a female.

_Yes_! Touko thought, grinning._ I have the perfect nickname._

"Would you three like to give you pokemon nicknames?" Professor Juniper asked. "I can register them for you right now, if you'd like."

Bianca passed, saying that she was fine with calling her oshawott by its species name, and Cheren said he wanted to be practical and not get into the whole nicknames thing. Touko said quickly, "I'd like to, professor."

"Great! What'll it be?" Professor Juniper responded, smiling.

"Jade," she replied confidently. She knew snivy wasn't the exact shade of jade green, but it was close enough. She also liked the name Jade. On the floor beside her, snivy - Jade - stayed nonchalant, but she looked pleased.

The professor took a moment to type it into her computer, before smiling at her. "A very nice name," she said, clasping her hands together. "Now, I have a small request for you three - "

"Professor Juniper! I'm here!"

The voice interrupted them, and Touko turned around to spot a brown-haired boy running towards them. His hair stuck out messily from underneath a cap, and he looked older than he had been when he'd left, but she still recognized him. How could she not?

"Hilbert!" she cried, running to meet him, hugging him tightly. "We missed you so much."

"Good to see you again, Touko," the boy responded, grinning. "So you're going on your journeys too, huh? Which starter did you pick?"

"Snivy," Touko answered, her smile wide. "I named her Jade."

She pulled away, and pouted when she realized Hilbert had grown slightly taller than her. Before he'd left, they'd been roughly the same height. (He had still been a bit taller, though.) Now the top of her head reached his nose, and she didn't like it. It felt like he was superior to her, although, he _was_ a year older than them.

"Sorry for interrupting, professor," Hilbert apologized, smiling. Professor Juniper chuckled.

"No problem. As I was saying, Touko, Cheren, and Bianca - I have a request. I want you three to travel the Unova region, and meet all its pokemon. I want your help in completing the pokedex. What do you say?"

"I'm in," Touko said immediately. What else could they say? Who wouldn't want to have their own journey?

"I'm in too!" Bianca added. "Of course I am, now that I have my cute little oshawott!"

"You can count me in," Cheren finished. "I'm going to be the strongest there ever was."

"Perfect," Professor Juniper said, looking upon them with a smile. "Well, it's time to teach you some basics of meeting pokemon. Meet me at Route 1 when you're ready. Hilbert, you're coming with them, I assume?" she added, as she started walking away.

"Yes, professor," the brunet boy responded with a chuckle.

Professor Juniper nodded her appreciation and left the lab, leaving the four trainers in the back room.

"Well, what are we waiting for?" Bianca asked. The blonde turned to Cheren and tugged on his arm. "C'mon, Cheren! Let's go!" The black-haired boy rolled his eyes, but let her drag him off. Touko turned to follow, laughing lightly to herself. She felt Hilbert tapping on her shoulder, and turned around to face him, raising an eyebrow.

"Have they gotten together yet?" He whispered, nodding at Cheren and Bianca. A smile lifted up the corners of Touko's mouth. "Nope," she whispered back. Since a while back, she and Hilbert started suspecting that Bianca and Cheren liked each other, but that they were both too afraid to admit it. Bianca's crush on Cheren was quite obvious, and Cheren's was slightly less obvious, but he was always good at not showing emotion. Touko and Hilbert had been waiting for a while to see if they would finally admit their feelings.

"Bummer," Hilbert said, sighing.

"Maybe we can get them together if you join us on our journeys," Touko suggested with a devilish grin.

He grinned back. "Gotcha."

"What are you two whispering about?" came Bianca's voice - she and Cheren were waiting at the exit of the lab, obviously wondering what was keeping them back. Touko looked over at Hilbert, and he winked back.

"Nothing," she responded smoothly, stifling a laugh.

"Well, hurry up," said Cheren, turning to look back at them. "We don't want to keep the professor waiting."

Bianca dragged him out of sight, and Touko turned to grab Hilbert's hand, smiling. "C'mon, they're right. We _should_ hurry."

The two trainers ran for the exit, hurrying to catch up to their friends. Professor Juniper was out there, and so was the rest of Unova, all waiting for them to explore. Touko couldn't believe so many things had happened in a mere few hours. Hilbert was back, they'd gotten their pokemon, and now they were leaving home...what would happen next?

At that moment, she could imagine anything.

* * *

**AN**: I know some people like portraying Hilbert and Hilda/Touya and Touko as siblings, but for some reason I've always imagined them as best friends who have a brother-sister sort of bond. I also have a headcanon that they ship Bianca and Cheren together haha :p

Any recommendations of pokemon game novelizations? **Touching the Sky **(ORAS/RSE novelization) by **Alphinia** is one I'd recommend, if you haven't checked it out yet. **Titanium** (Platinum novelization) by **Ten-Faced** is also a great read. Both authors are absolutely amazing at writing :)


	3. Chapter 2: A Mysterious Speech

The "Welcome to Nuvema Town" sign faded away behind them, as Touko and her friends walked along Route 1. Bianca and Cheren walked ahead, while she and Hilbert strolled leisurely behind them, occasionally chatting. There was a lot to catch up on, and Hilbert did most of the talking.

"Musicals are actually really fun, once you get the hang of them," he was saying to Touko, who was listening intently. "The props you use really affect the audience's view of your performance - "

"Hey Hilbert, Cheren wants to know how many pokemon you've seen in the Unova region!" Bianca shouted back at them cheerfully, interrupting him mid-sentence. The blonde had grabbed Cheren's hand, and the black-haired boy looked nonchalant about it. But Touko and Hilbert knew better. They exchanged a glance, and smirked simultaneously at Cheren.

Cheren scowled, and Hilbert, pretending that he hadn't done anything, recovered his goofy smile and said, "Well, I don't know exactly. But I've seen quite a bit, and I've been focusing more on travelling than battling. Here, you can check my pokedex," he offered, reaching into his bag.

Cheren muttered a thanks as he took the device from Hilbert, and left to catch up to Bianca. Looking at the pokedex made Touko remember something suddenly.

"Hey, can we see your pokemon?" she asked enthusiastically. "What other pokemon have you caught? Is tepig a pignite yet? How many pokemon do you have - "

"Whoa, slow down, you're starting to talk like Bianca," he laughed, holding up his hands. She scowled at him, and he said with a grin, "Alright, I'll show you them."

Hilbert reached into his bag and pulled out four pokeballs. Touko watched, excited. On her shoulder, Jade perked up with interest. "Come on out, guys!" he shouted, and the four pokeballs opened, each releasing a pokemon with a flash of red light.

Four pokemon stood in front of her. One was a determined looking boar-like pokemon, which she recognized as pignite. That was his tepig, now evolved. A green monkey pokemon stood beside it, and grunted in a low tone. A gray bird pokemon waved its wing as if to say hello, and lastly, there was a large, purple and intimidating looking bug pokemon. Touko breathed out in awe. "Wow..."

The snivy on her shoulder squirmed a little, probably a bit intimidated by them like Touko was. Hilbert chuckled, and said, "So these are my friends. Pignite, who I named Cole." He nodded at the pignite, who blew out fire from his nose. "Jeff, the simisage." The green monkey grunted again, and lazily waved a hand in greeting. "Uma, the unfezant." The gray bird chirped loudly, looking cheerful. "And Lyssa, the scolipede. She's actually really friendly," he added, putting an arm around the giant bug pokemon, who closed her eyes in content.

"Wow!" another voice exclaimed. Bianca and Cheren were turning back towards them, seeing Hilbert's pokemon. Bianca's eyes were wide, and she was waving her hands excitedly in the air, looking enthusiastic. "They're so strong looking!"

"Thanks," Hilbert answered, chuckling again. "It takes time and patience to train them, but it's worth it in the end."

He kept a hand on Lyssa, while Uma flew to his shoulder. He smiled, and reached into his pocket, pulling out a small treat which he fed to her. The unfezant chirped happily, and seeing that made Touko feel even more excited. She couldn't wait to have a bond with her own pokemon like that. _Speaking of my own pokemon_...

While Cheren asked Hilbert some questions and Bianca gushed over the pokemon, Touko slung off her bag and dug around, pulling out a container of pokemon treats her mother had given to her. She took one out, and offered it to Jade, who was still on her shoulder. Her snivy took it cautiously, and gave it a small nibble before finishing it off in a few quick bites. Touko laughed.

Jeff ambled over to her, giving Jade a curious look. "Simi?" he grunted, waving a hand in front of the snivy.

"Vy, snivy!" Jade responded, narrowing her eyes. The small pokemon turned her back to Hilbert's simisage, crossing her arms as well. _That's clearly her way of saying 'I don't like you,'_ Touko thought, with a small chuckle. Jeff looked puzzled, and merely shrugged.

"Simisage, simi," he said, shrugging again. At that, Jade turned back, interest in her eyes.

"Sni, snivy?" Her snivy responded curiously, and simisage grunted in return. Touko was fascinated by their exchange, and she wished that she could understand pokemon-talk.

"I can see Professor Juniper ahead," said Cheren suddenly, turning back towards them. "Should we go on? We don't want to keep her waiting any longer."

Touko saw the professor too, and some tall grass where she was standing. "Yeah," she agreed, quickly. "She's probably busy with other things too."

"Let's go!" Bianca said, bouncing enthusiastically. "I can't wait to find out how to catch pokemon!"

"Lyssa, Cole, and Jeff, return," Hilbert said, holding out three pokeballs. Uma the unfezant was the only one left, still perched on his shoulder. "I figured Uma's pretty calm and cheerful, so she shouldn't be a problem," he admitted, laughing lightly. "Cole might accidentally burn the tall grass, Jeff's really lazy so he'd hold us back, and Lyssa might scare the wild pokemon away. You know, since she looks kinda intimidating."

Touko smiled. "They seem hard to handle."

"At times they are," he responded, stuffing his hands into his pockets. "But I don't mind."

In front of them, Cheren was suddenly dragged by Bianca, who was running towards Professor Juniper. Touko exchanged a glance with Hilbert. "Should we run too?" she asked.

"Why not?" was his answer, so she broke into a run, her snivy hanging on tight to her shoulder. Bianca and Cheren were already talking to the professor, and Touko stopped beside them, panting. Hilbert followed, a few seconds behind. Uma came last, flying leisurely above them.

"Hello Hilbert, Touko," Professor Juniper greeted them, smiling. "You have a fine unfezant there."

Hilbert gave a silly grin and bowed. "Thanks, professor."

"Anyways, since you're all here, I'd like to begin," the professor continued. Touko nodded and straightened up, focusing her attention on her. "First of all, thanks to advanced technology, the pokedexes update their pages automatically when you catch or encounter a new pokemon. Keep in mind that you get more information when you catch one, however. Everyone with me?"

Touko nodded, as did Bianca and Cheren.

"Alright. Next I'd like to teach you three how to catch pokemon," Professor Juniper continued, making Touko grin. The brunette had been looking forward to catching her own pokemon, so she was really excited. The same could be said for Bianca, who squealed in excitement. Cheren just nodded simply.

"Watch me in the tall grass, okay?" The professor said, and stepped into the tall grass. Touko, Cheren, and Bianca ran to watch her, while Hilbert stayed back. From a few meters away, they saw a pokemon jump out at Professor Juniper as she walked by. It was brown coloured, and had a tan stomach and face.

"Patrat, pa!" it cried. _Hm, so patrat must be that pokemon's name,_ Touko thought quickly to herself. Professor Juniper took a pokeball from her lab coat pocket and threw it in the air, saying, "Come on out, minccino!" A fluffy-looking gray coloured pokemon came out, landing lightly on two feet.

"Min!" the pokemon said, looking determined.

"Minccino, use pound!" Professor Juniper commanded. The gray pokemon nodded, and ran forward, leaping into the air. As patrat stared around in confusion, minccino came down, smacking the wild pokemon hard with its tail. Patrat stumbled back, evidently weakened.

Minccino got back to its feet, awaiting the professor's next order. But Professor Juniper was reaching into her coat pocket for another pokeball, which she threw at patrat this time. Touko watched with a held breath as the pokeball opened, sucking in the patrat. It fell to the ground, and shook. Once, twice...and a third time. A ding emitted from the pokeball, and Professor Juniper picked it up with a smile.

"The sound of a ding means the pokemon has successfully been captured," she explained to them, picking up minccino's pokeball as well. "Minccino, return!" The gray pokemon was sucked into its pokeball, and Professor Juniper stored it in her pocket before making her way back through the tall grass.

"Were you watching all that?" she asked, brushing some grass off her coat.

Touko nodded, a grin spreading across her face. "That was awesome!" she exclaimed, and Bianca nodded her agreement. Cheren was looking rather impressed as well.

"Although, bear in mind that it won't always be that easy," Hilbert warned. The boy was near them, his unfezant perched on his shoulder. "Some pokemon are extremely difficult to catch, and often you'll have to use more than one pokeball before you succeed."

"Excellent point, Hilbert," the professor said, nodding. "But that's why there are different kinds of pokeballs to improve chances of catches. But we won't go into that yet. I'd like to go over some tips for catching pokemon."

Upon the mention of different kinds of pokeballs, Touko vaguely remembered Hilbert talking about the masterball, a pokeball that could catch any wild pokemon without fail. It sounded really awesome, but they didn't sound easy to come by. She quickly brushed the thought away as Professor Juniper started talking.

"I'll go through the steps," she was saying. "First, reduce the pokemon's health, so that they're more tired. Pokemon with all their energy are much harder to catch, as they could be strong enough to break out of a pokeball."

Touko nodded - that made sense. Cheren was nodding as well, looking thoughtful.

"Next, you throw your pokeball," Professor Juniper continued. "Three shakes usually means that you've successfully caught the pokemon. One thing you can do to make it easier for a catch is inflict a status on a wild pokemon. Making the pokemon fall asleep is your best option, and the most effective. Paralysis is good too if you don't have a pokemon on you who can inflict sleep. Other status conditions like burns and poisons help too, but aren't as effective."

"Plus, burns and poisons can eventually knock out the pokemon," Hilbert added. "And you can't catch a fainted wild pokemon. Pokeballs were made to capture pokemon who are still conscious."

That was a lot of information to take in, but Touko was sure that she'd memorize it all in no time. Professor Juniper bent down, and Touko assumed that she was leaving, but the professor reached into her bag and pulled out a bag of pokeballs. Huh?

"Before I leave, I have a gift for you three," Professor Juniper said, much to Touko's surprise. She handed five pokeballs to Cheren, five pokeballs to Bianca, and lastly, five pokeballs to Touko. Touko took them, grinning. She couldn't wait to catch her own pokemon!

"Thank you, Professor Juniper!" Bianca exclaimed, looking thrilled. Touko felt the same way, and echoed Bianca's thanks along with Cheren.

"It's no problem at all," the professor reassured them, chuckling. "I give all new trainers some pokeballs to start them off. Consider it a thank you gift for helping me with the pokedex work."

She turned on her heel and started walking back through the tall grass, saying, "I'll wait ahead in Accumula Town. Please meet me there."

Soon her figure had disappeared from view, and Touko turned back to her friends. "Shall we explore?" she suggested.

"I'll just follow you guys. I've already explored Route 1, anyways," Hilbert said, shrugging. "You guys take your time, but I'm coming with you to Accumula Town."

"Yay!" Bianca cheered, bouncing on the spot. "Ooh, I can't wait to catch some pokemon! I wonder what cute pokemon I can find..." The blonde's voice trailed off as she turned and ran into the tall grass without looking back.

Touko laughed lightly at her friend's enthusiasm, and beside her, Cheren groaned. "I'd better go with her before she gets into trouble, " he muttered, and was quick to follow Bianca into the grass. Touko turned to look back at Hilbert with a smile. "So...looks like it's the two of them. Want to come with me?" she offered.

He grinned back. "Sure."

Thick clusters of trees surrounded the tall grass on both sides, so they only had one way to go - through the grass, forward. "That's the way to Accumula Town," Hilbert had said, when she'd asked. Touko found the route to be quite straightforward. It was basically one large, straight dirt path, with occasional patches of tall grass and fenced-in areas of flowers. The flowers were a pretty shade of pale pink, and looked like they were dancing when the wind blew them. Hilbert even ducked under the fence to pick one, and he held it out to her with a goofy grin.

"For you, my lady," he said in a deep accent, making Touko burst into laughter.

That was disastrous, because oftentimes when Touko laughed, she couldn't stop for a long time. They had to wait several minutes for her to calm down, and when she finally did she took another look at Hilbert and burst out laughing again. This time Hilbert couldn't stop himself from laughing too, and it was another five minutes before they'd both calmed down enough to continue.

Farther down the route, Touko spotted some stairs that led down to a river. Upon further inspection, she noticed that the river flowed into a large lake. Hilbert had to tug her away, reminding her that she didn't have a swimsuit on and that they didn't have time to explore. That made her pout.

"Fine, but we're coming back later!" she told him firmly. He only laughed in return.

The rest of the route had a similar layout, and Hilbert stood on the path to wait while Touko took some time to explore the tall grass. She spotted Cheren and Bianca a bit further on, but didn't call out to them. She wanted to find some wild pokemon first.

The first pokemon she ran into was a patrat, the pokemon that the professor had caught. Touko didn't catch it, and instead got Jade to beat it with a few tackles. The next pokemon she encountered was a furry, beige-coloured, quadrupedal pokemon that resembled a canine. Her pokedex told her it was a lillipup, a common pokemon on Route 1. To her confusion, after the lillipup had fainted, a blue aura surrounded her pokemon for a few seconds, before fading.

"Huh?" Touko muttered, peering closely at Jade. Her snivy looked quite the same as before, except for looking a bit more tired. (But that was expected, of course.) Deciding that her pokedex might have some answers, she took the device out and scanned her snivy.

The information on her pokedex revealed that Jade had just learned a new move._ Vine whip,_ the screen read, making Touko gasp in delight. Now Jade had a grass-type move!

She slipped the device back into her bag, and beckoned for her snivy to follow her. "Come on, Jade, we should probably get back to Hilbert," she said, grinning. "And congratulations on learning a new move!"

A pleased smile appeared on Jade's face, and the snivy leaped up to Touko's shoulder. Touko made sure the pokemon was comfortably seated before setting back through the tall grass to where Hilbert was waiting.

"Hilbert!" Touko shouted, breaking into a run as she spotted him up ahead. He'd climbed up into a tree and was sitting on a branch, along with Jeff the simisage and Uma the unfezant. He looked up at her shout, and immediately jumped down from the tree, running to meet her.

"Touko! Is something wrong?" he asked quickly, brow furrowed.

"Oh, no, nothing at all," she grinned sheepishly, "it's the exact opposite. Jade just learned vine whip!"

She patted the snivy on her shoulder as she spoke, her grin growing wider. "I'm so glad she has another attacking move besides tackle now."

Hilbert let out a dramatic sigh of relief. "You had me worried there," he laughed.

Touko punched him lightly on his shoulder, a playful smile on her face. "You really think I'd get into trouble? I'm perfectly capable of handling myself," she teased. "I think it's more likely for _you_ to get in trouble on your own."

"Oh, shut up," was the brunet's only response, and Touko chuckled lightly to herself.

"C'mon, it's about time we hurried up," she added, motioning to where two figures stood, quite a distance ahead of them. "Cheren'll be impatient - I bet he already is. We've pretty much explored all this area, too."

"Fair enough," Hilbert said, and they set off with a jog to join their friends.

* * *

"We've been waiting forever," Cheren complained. Those were the black-haired boy's first words to them as they ran up to him and Bianca. "The professor's probably really impatient."

"What did I tell you?" Touko whispered to Hilbert, keeping a smile back.

"I never said I didn't believe you," he whispered back, smirking.

"You guys won't believe it!" Bianca cut in, her eyes shining. "I caught the most adorable cutie ever! Meet lillipup!"

She tossed a pokeball in the air, and a lillipup came out, barking. "Pup, lillipup!" Then it stopped and started sniffing around, its tongue hanging out of its mouth. With a giggle, Touko bent down and gave it a pat.

"Isn't she so adorable?" Bianca exclaimed. "You know, now I'm starting to think I should've nicknamed my pokemon..." her voice trailed off as she began giggling at her lillipup's antics.

"You could start now," Hilbert said, shrugging. "You'll just have to register their nicknames at a pokemon center."

"You know what, I think I will!" The blonde said confidentally. "I'll just think of the nicknames later," she added as an afterthought.

Cheren was now tapping his foot on the ground, looking ahead to where they could see a few buildings in the distance._ Accumula Town, probably_, Touko thought to herself, straightening up from Bianca's lillipup.

"We should go now," she said quickly, sensing Cheren's impatience. "Let's not keep Professor Juniper waiting!"

"Good idea! Let's go!" Bianca said cheerfully, and took out a pokeball from her bag. She returned lillipup, and immediately took off, leaving the three behind. They saw her nearly crash into a tree, before she ran out of their sight. Cheren smacked his head with his hand and said, "Let's go before she gets into a mess."

Touko personally didn't like the thought of having Bianca run into a tree and injuring herself on the first day of their journey, so she agreed.

They found the blonde talking to Professor Juniper right inside Accumula Town. Accumula Town was definitely bigger than Nuvema Town, and much more modern-like, but still a bit small compared to Touko's mother's descriptions of other cities. Obviously she hadn't seen those cities herself, but she imagined them to be pretty big. (Especially Castelia City.)

To their left she could see a stairway leading down to a lower level with several large apartment buildings, and a few houses. Up ahead, to their right, was the pokemon center (which Hilbert pointed out), and a small park on their left with a few benches. Touko could see more apartment buildings located near the pokemon center, and some more in the northern part of the town.

"...I caught a lillipup!" Bianca was saying happily. "Cheren didn't catch any pokemon, and I'm not sure about Touko, either."

"Hello Professor Juniper," Cheren greeted the professor, sticking his hands into his pockets. "I'm sorry you had to wait for us."

"Polite as always, Cheren," the professor responded, smiling. "But it's really no problem. I waited for you here because I'd like to show Cheren, Bianca, and Touko around the pokemon center. You can wait out here, or come with us if you'd like, Hilbert," she finished.

The brunet boy shrugged. "I'll wait outside."

"Alright. Cheren, Bianca, Touko, follow me," Professor Juniper said, clasping her hands together. She turned and walked towards the pokemon center, letting the three trainers walk behind her. The doors of the building opened automatically when they neared, sensing their presence. Professor Juniper led them inside, and gave them a moment to take everything in. Touko looked around, eyes wide.

There was a second floor in the pokemon center, and on it, some people standing in front of desks that led to what looked like teleporters. A large model of a globe spun slowly in the corner. On the first floor, the main 'attraction' was the nurse's desk, where you could get your pokemon healed for free. (Hilbert had explained that to her.) There was a complicated-looking machine next to the nurse's desk, and on the right side of the first floor, near the entrance, were two clerks. They stood behind a desk with a cash register on it, and there were glass boxes displaying items behind them. On the left side of the Pokemon center was a bookshelf, table and chairs.

"This place is huge!" Bianca exclaimed. She pointed at the machine next to the nurse's desk. "What's that? What does it do? What are those clerks selling? And what are those things upstairs - "

"Slow down, Bianca," Professor Juniper laughed. "I'll get to it, I promise. First, I'd like to show you three the main feature of a pokemon center."

She started walking towards the nurse's desk as she spoke. "As you might know, you can have your pokemon healed for free at a Pokemon center. Touko, would you like to give it a try?"

Touko shrugged. "Alright."

She walked towards the nurse, who smiled at her as she approached. "How may I help you today?" The nurse asked kindly.

"I'd like you to heal my snivy, please," Touko said, handing over her snivy's pokeball. The nurse took it, and typed something into her computer. "Any status conditions or serious wounds?" she asked, while typing.

"No," Touko responded, feeling puzzled. Why did that matter?

"This should only take a few minutes," the nurse said quickly, smiling. Touko watched as she turned to a machine behind her. It was flat, had six shallow holes, and snivy's pokeball fit perfectly into one of them. The nurse pressed a button on the machine, and the machine started to glow yellow, along with a screen on the wall behind it. Touko watched the screen, entranced. It displayed a loading screen with data appearing rapidly. _Checking for internal damage...37% done. Healing bruises and cuts...61% done._

A few moments later, the screen flashed green, and the nurse removed snivy's pokeball, which she handed back to Touko with a smile. "Here you go - all healed up! Thank you, and have a nice day."

Touko thanked the woman, and stepped back with Professor Juniper, Cheren, and Bianca, who was looking deeply fascinated.

"How come she asked me if my snivy had any status conditions or serious wounds?" Touko asked the professor. "What difference does it make?"

"The machine she used was to heal basic injuries, such as cuts, bruises, and fatigue," Professor Juniper explained with a smile. "Status conditions like poisons and burns can't be healed by the machine, so they require special care. The same goes for more serious wounds."

"I think I read something about that in a book, once," Cheren put in, looking thoughtful. "It makes sense."

That made Touko and Bianca both laugh, and the black-haired boy scowled at them. "What's so funny?" he demanded, crossing his arms.

"Since when - have you leaned something - that _wasn't_ from - a book?" Touko said, between her giggles.

Cheren looked flustered. "There's nothing wrong with books!" he retorted.

"Of course there isn't," Bianca giggled. "Don't worry, we love you Cheren."

That caused the boy to blush slightly, and Professor Juniper intervened before things went any further. "Alright, alright, tease each other later, okay?" she said, with a little smile. "For now, we're here to look around the pokemon center."

Touko composed herself, and put on a straight face. "Yes, professor."

Then she looked over at Bianca, who was still giggling quietly, and burst into laughter again.

* * *

Cheren ended up leaving the pokemon center before their tour was done to join Hilbert, because apparently he knew all the stuff that Professor Juniper was going to show them. Professor Juniper led Touko and Bianca around, showing them things such as the machine near the nurse's desk, which turned out to be the PC (a place to deposit pokemon and retrieve them). After their tour was done, Professor Juniper told them that she was going to go back to Nuvema Town.

"I have some research to catch up on," she said. "One last thing - when you four reach Striaton City, the next city from this town, find Fennel, a scientist. She's one of my old friends, and she might help you out on your journeys. She has long black hair and glasses."

Touko nodded, repeating the name in her head. _Fennel, Striaton City._

"That will be all, then. Have fun on you journeys, and good luck," the professor finished, and walked out of the pokemon center. Touko turned to Bianca once she'd gone. "We should go find Cheren and Hilbert now," she suggested. "Unless you want to do anything else."

"Nah, let's find them!" Bianca agreed, and grabbed Touko's hand before sprinting out of the pokemon center.

Something seemed strange outside. It was quiet, much quieter than it had been when they'd first arrived. Touko frowned, seeing a large group of people gathered near the park, whispering to each other. What was going on?

"Bianca! Touko!" a voice hissed. Touko turned to see Hilbert and Cheren waving frantically at them, looking worried. "Come on!"

Exchanging confused looks, she and Bianca rushed toward their friends. Now that they were closer to the crowd, Touko could see that there was a group of strange-looking people lined up in the park. Several of them stood in a straight line, all wearing the same gray, white, and black outfits that reminded Touko of clothing knights wore in her storybooks. On their outfits, each of them had a crest sewed on - a blue 'P' against a black and white background. There were two flags on short flagpoles on both sides of the line, displaying the same P crest.

In front of them stood a man with pale green hair. He had on a white robe, and a cloak over it designed with peculiar eye patterns, again she saw the crest. He also had a red eyepatch, and was standing with a confident manner. The murmuring around them ceased as he cleared his throat loudly. Touko immediately felt suspiciously. Who was this guy?

"My name is Ghetsis, and I speak here representing Team Plasma. Today, ladies and gentlemen, I am here to talk to you about the liberation of pokemon," he began. He had a powerful voice, and he was like one of those people who didn't have to shout to get people's attention. _Something about his voice makes you want to listen_, Touko thought, her eyes narrowing.

His words brought more murmurs out of the crowd, and again Ghetsis cleared his throat. "We humans think that pokemon appreciate our company, and that we are together because we need each other. But is that really the truth?"

He paused for a second, and continued. The words he spoke next filled Touko with rage. "Humans enslave pokemon, and force them to work. We push them around, making them do as we wish with no thought to their well-being. Can anyone say - "

"That's not true." A voice rang out loudly, interrupting him mid-sentence. It was Touko. The brunette stood with her hands on her hips and her eyes narrowed as the crowd moved back, allowing Ghetsis to see her. The man directed his attention to her, with a charming laugh.

"My dear, are you so sure of that? Can you say with confidence that what I say is not true?"

"_Don't_, Touko," Cheren whispered urgently. "Stop it."

But she wasn't listening to him. Touko glared back at the man. "Yeah, I can. Not all trainers are heartless. Pokemon fight for us because they want to. Have you seen the bonds pokemon have with their trainers? How happy they look?"

Everyone was staring at her as Ghetisis chucked again. "Have you seen the pokemon who've been injured and hurt by their trainers? The world isn't as innocent as you might think. How do you know our pokemon want to fight for us?"

Touko hesitated as she searched for the right thing to say, but it was enough for Ghetsis. The man turned back to the rest of the crowd, and continued. "We must liberate pokemon, to make them equal to humans. I end my speech today, and I urge you to consider the relationship between us humans and pokemon. Thank you for your attention."

The Team Plasma people behind him picked up the flags, and flanked Ghetsis on both sides, before marching out of sight. Once they had gone, the people in the crowd separated, talking about the speech they had witnessed. Touko's fists were clenched, and she was gritting her teeth. "The nerve of that guy!" she muttered to herself.

Her friends crowded around her awkwardly, and Hilbert settled for patting her back. "Calm down, Touko. That guy's nuts, obviously. No one will listen to him."

"They better not," she responded, still angry. She looked up to see a guy standing near them, watching them. His green hair was tied into a ponytail, and he had a silver and black cap on his head. He was wearing a white shirt and beige pants, and she stiffened as he started walking towards them.

They all turned to stare at him when he approached. "Your pokemon," he said softly.

"What about them?" Touko snapped. He looked extremely suspicious.

"It happened, just now. I heard them talking."

* * *

**AN**: Nothing much to say about this chapter. I was planning to put the battle with N in it, though, but it kind of got too long before I could. Oops. Looks like it's going to be in the next chapter. Anyways, as always, constructive criticism is welcome. ;)

Thanks for reading!


	4. Chapter 3: Parting Ways

_I heard them talking._

What the hell?

"You heard my pokemon...talking," Touko said, looking at the guy. (He looked around their age, maybe a few years older.) He nodded, and he looked sincere. He was obviously lying, though. Nobody could understand exactly what pokemon said. Translators had been made before, but none had been very effective. But the thought of a person being able to understand pokemon speech was impossible.

...or was it?

Touko glanced at Cheren, trying to decipher his reaction. Maybe he'd know something from his books. The black-haired boy looked thoughtful, as he scratched his head, but he offered no explanation. Bianca looked confused, to put it simply, and so did Hilbert.

"Yes, they were talking," the guy said firmly. "They were saying..."

He trailed off, seeing that none of them responded. "So you four can't hear them... How sad. My name is N."

Touko looked back to her friends, mouthing, _what do we do?_ This guy was peculiar for sure, but she had no idea if he was good or bad. Did he pose a threat to them? What if they just ran and ditched him right now?

Cheren seemed to take the polite approach. "My name is Cheren, and these are my friends - Touko, Bianca, and Hilbert. We're on a journey to help the professor complete the pokedex."

"The pokedex, hm?" N asked. "You're going to have to catch lots of pokemon and keep them in pokeballs to do so. I'm a trainer myself, but is this really right? It makes me wonder..."

He trailed off and turned to face Touko with a determined look. "Well, Touko, let me hear your pokemon's voice again! Go, purrloin!"

N tossed a pokeball, and a purple and furry quadrupedal pokemon came out, landing lightly on four paws. It had cream-coloured markings on its body, and intelligent green eyes. "Purrloin!" it cried, dropping into a crouch.

"Touko, let's go. We don't need to get into a battle with this guy!" Cheren called out desperately, but Touko ignored him. She was already tossing her snivy's pokeball in the air, shouting, "Jade, come on out!"

Her snivy appeared with a flash of red light, and turned to face the purrloin with narrowed eyes. "Sni!"

"Jade, use vine whip!" Touko commanded immediately. She was eager to test out the new move. Jade ran, two vines growing from her body, and leaped into the air before the purrloin, lashing out multiple times with the vines. The purrloin cried out and flinched, stumbling back as Jade continued to hit her with her vines.

"Purrloin, get out of the way!" N shouted. "Then use scratch!"

"Stop using vine whip, and dodge it if you can, Jade!" Touko cried. Her snivy landed back on her feet, the vines retracting into her body as she did. N's purrloin started running at Jade, surprising Touko with its agility. Waiting until the last second, Jade leaped up, but the purrloin had somehow predicted the action. The feline pokemon leaped up as well, scratching her snivy with a claw before landing lightly. Jade cried out and fell back, barely managing to land on her feet.

N went for the offensive next. "Use scratch again!"

"Dodge, and use vine whip!"

"Use growl!"

Jade managed to hit the purrloin away with a few vine whips, stopping it from using growl. Feeling more confident, Touko shouted, "Now finish it off with a tackle!"

"Scratch, purrloin!"

Both pokemon collided into each other, purrloin scratching snivy, snivy hitting purrloin with a vine. There was a small dust cloud from the impact, and when it cleared Touko ran over worriedly. To her relief, Jade was on her feet, looking determined, and breathing hard. N's purrloin stood up shakily as well, and collapsed, causing the green-haired trainer to cry out. "Purrloin!"

He ran to his collapsed pokemon and picked it up, eyes wide with worry. Touko almost felt a pang of pity, but she pushed it away. He was just another weirdo, someone she shouldn't care about. She'd probably never see him again after this, anyways.

Touko recalled Jade to her pokeball, and straightened up.

"I can't believe it...I've never heard pokemon saying such things," N murmured, after recalling his pokemon. "As long as pokemon are being confined in pokeballs, they'll never be perfect. I have to change the world for them...because they're my friends."

Without another word, he walked off.

"Oookay," said Hilbert slowly. "That was a little bit weird."

"Are there always this many weirdos?" Touko grumbled. "First some crazy guy who wants to 'liberate' pokemon, and now a guy who can apparently talk to pokemon."

"I never came across people this weird when I was travelling," Hilbert admitted, laughing slightly. "Although, I did come across Team Plasma before...they stole a little boy's pokemon. I helped get it back."

"They sound like terrible people," Bianca mused, and Touko agreed. What right did they have to go around, stealing people's pokemon and saying that it was 'for a good cause'?

"Oh, and Professor Juniper gave me this," the blonde added suddenly, fishing out a letter from her pocket. "She asked me to deliver it to a girl in a house located in the northeastern part of the town. Apparently her house is on an outlook..."

Touko peered ahead, seeing several streets with houses and apartment buildings, and saw an outlook with a single house. That had to be it.

"Isn't it the house there?" Cheren asked, pointing in the outlook's direction.

"That must be it!" Bianca agreed cheerfully. "Let's go, guys!"

* * *

Inside the house, they found two people. A brunette girl with pigtails sat playing the piano, and a brunet boy sat playing the drums. They didn't seem to notice the four trainers' presence for a while, and Cheren cleared his throat. That caused both of them to look up, and the girl grinned widely as if they were old friends.

"Would you like to hear us play a song?" she asked, beaming. "It's our specialty."

"Oh yes!" Bianca exclaimed happily, grinning back. "We'd love to!"

The blonde seemed to have forgotten all about the letter they were supposed to deliver. But one song wouldn't hurt. _Besides, I could do with some music right now, _Touko thought. The girl beamed again and said, "Great! Let's start!"

They immediately started playing a happy, upbeat tune, which made Touko close her eyes and grin. It was very catchy, and pleasant sounding. She opened her eyes to see her friends moving slightly to the rhythm, even Cheren.

Too soon it was over, and the girl grinned widely at them. "So? What did you think? I'm Grace, and this is my brother Sage. We love playing music!"

"That was awesome!" Hilbert exclaimed. "Really aw - "

"I have a letter for you!" Bianca sang, interrupting him, and thrust the letter at Grace. The brunette girl took it and opened it, her eyes widening as she read it. "Sage," she began breathlessly. "You won't believe it. We've both been accepted into that fancy music school mother applied us to!"

She turned to the four trainers, and said, "Thank you so much for delivering the letter to us! You're trainers, aren't you? I wish you luck on your journeys!"

"Don't need it," Hilbert responded jokingly, with a grin. "You're welcome, by the way."

The boy smiled now, and Cheren spoke up. "We should go, but congratulations," he said.

"Of course. Thank you again!" the girl smiled widely.

Touko followed her friends out of the house, and as they descended the stairs leading to the outlook, said, "That music really was nice. I've never heard anything like it."

"It was just so catchy!" Bianca agreed. "Anyways, what do we do now? Split up, or keep travelling together?"

Her question left a silence for a while, as Touko and the others contemplated the thought. The blonde was right, though - what should they do? Hilbert probably wanted to continue his own journey, and they shouldn't keep him back. The three of them would probably want to travel at their own paces, too. But did she feel comfortable, travelling on her own? No one to rely on but herself?

"I think we should split up, at least in twos," said Cheren, breaking the silence. "It might be best. After all, we have different goals, don't we?"

That made Touko feel uncomfortable. She knew Cheren wanted to be the strongest, Bianca was interested in being the professor's assistant, and Hilbert just liked to travel and explore. But she had no idea what her goal was. So far, none of them had the same goal.

"None of us have the same goals," Touko said, slowly. "So I think it has to be everyone on their own - for a while, at least. Maybe we could travel together later."

Her heart sank slightly as the others nodded. It was for the best, but she'd miss their company. Even Hilbert was looking serious for once.

"Then it's settled," the brunet boy said, with a sad smile. "We're officially splitting apart."

"It won't be permanent, right?" Bianca asked hopefully. "Like Touko said, we could travel together sometime again."

"We will," Cheren promised, with a slight smile. "Sometime. Maybe even after we reach the next city."

"Sounds good," Touko agreed. She opened her arms with a smile. "Group hug?"

"Group hug," the three echoed, and they embraced each other tightly. Again, Touko reminded herself to let go. This wasn't permanent, after all. It was only for a short while. Soon they'd be back together.

"See you later, then," Cheren said immediately, after they broke apart. "I'm off to Route 2." He was gone in a few minutes, walking to the west from where they were. Touko peered after him, seeing a tunnel-shaped building up ahead. His figure disappeared into it, and she turned back to Hilbert and Bianca.

"I'm going to explore this town a bit more," the blonde decided cheerfully. "See you two."

She was gone too, headed down a street to their left, and it was just Touko and Hilbert left. Hilbert shuffled his feet, and said, "To be honest, I don't really know what my goal is. I think I'll just travel at my own pace."

"Same," she agreed simply. There was a silence.

"Well.." Touko began. "I think I'll go to Route 2 as well. See you later, Hilbert."

She hesitated for a moment as he responded, "Actually, I'm thinking of doing the same thing." He paused, and smiled sheepishly at her. "Is it okay if I tag along? I don't really have anything else to do. I've already been here, after all."

"Sure, why not?" Touko agreed, brightening up. She shot him a cocky grin. "I did say everyone in their own, but hey, what Bianca and Cheren don't know won't hurt them. Besides, it's not like we took an oath or something."

He grinned back. "Gotcha. So...let's go?"

"Let's go," she responded confidently. "Although - could we stop at the pokemon center quickly? I want to heal Jade."

Hilbert shook his head at her in mock disappointment, but smiled goofily. "Sure."

It didn't take them long (although the nurse had to take some extra time to heal one of the scratches purrloin had made), and soon they were heading out to Route 2. Touko hadn't gone far when the XTransceiver on her wrist started to ring, indicating a call. She muttered a quick "excuse me" to Hilbert, and looked down at the screen. It was her mother calling. She quickly pressed the pick up button, and her mother's face appeared on the screen.

"Touko! How are you doing?" her mother asked immediately, smiling. "From what I can see, you look well."

Touko laughed, and responded, "I'm great, thanks mom. Hilbert and I are headed out on Route 2. We've just left Accumula Town."

"Hello, Mrs. White!" Hilbert leaned over, grinning. "Good to see you!"

On the screen, Touko's mother chuckled. "Good to see you too, Hilbert. Touko, I couldn't help calling to check on you. Everything's fine, then?"

"Perfectly, mom," Touko told her, smiling. "I love you. I promise I'll visit sometime."

"I love you too, sweetie. Have fun."

Her mother hung up, and Touko turned off the screen of her XTransceiver. She straightened up and turned back to Hilbert. "Shall we keep going?" she offered.

"Obviously, yes," was his response, making her chuckle. They kept walking, and up ahead to their right was a large patch of tall grass. Rows of trees surrounded the grass, and to their left was a large boulder, which Touko tried (and obviously failed) to push out of the way. Hilbert told her that it required a pokemon to use the move strength on, which made her upset.

They continued through the tall grass, and bumped into a purrloin. But Touko didn't catch it. All it reminded her of was the peculiar green-haired guy back in Accumula Town, and that just confused her. He was just some weirdo on the streets, and she'd probably never see him again. But why did she feel like they would?

"What do you think of that N guy we met in Accumula Town?" she asked, turning to look at Hilbert. "Do you believe that he can actually talk to pokemon?"

He frowned thoughtfully, and shrugged. "I don't really know. I've never heard anything like it, but I don't think it's impossible, though. I'm curious as to who exactly he is - his name can't really be N."

"Maybe it stands for something," Touko suggested, stepping over a tree root in the grass.

"Probably," Hilbert answered, a grin appearing on his face. "Maybe it stands for 'nuts'."

She laughed in response. "Yeah, maybe."

They continued making their way through the tall grass, until they reached a neat-looking dirt path that led forward to another patch of tall grass. There was grass growing here as well, but it was very short and definitely did not have any pokemon hiding in it. They continued for a good twenty minutes, and reached the tall grass. As Touko walked through it, she almost bumped right into a pokemon. She managed to stop right in front of it, and frowned as she looked at it. This was a pokemon she didn't recognize.

"Au," the pokemon said, stepping back. It was pink and cream coloured, and stood on two short legs. Its blue eyes blinked at them, and it beamed.

"What's that?" Touko asked, while digging into her bag for her pokedex. As she pulled out the device, Hilbert said, "It's an audino. They help out at pokemon centers, and they also give a good amount of experience to your pokemon when you fight them."

Curious, she held her pokedex to scan it. Text appeared, saying that audino was the hearing pokemon, able to access the physical and mental state of a pokemon using its ears. "That must be why it helps out in pokemon centers," she mused out loud, whole glancing down at her snivy. "Jade, ready to go?"

"Vy!" her pokemon responded determinedly, and behind her, Hilbert chuckled. "So you're taking it on? Good luck!"

Touko nodded to him, and said, "Jade, use vine whip!"

Her snivy burst into action, lashing out at the audino. The battle went fairly quickly, and soon the audino had fainted. She felt a bit bad for hurting it, but that was just part of pokemon battles, wasn't it? They continued along the route, until a patrat ran up to them.

"Patrat, pa!" it cried. It didn't look like a wild pokemon to Touko, and they weren't in the tall grass, either. _So it belongs to someone, then_, Touko thought. _Maybe it's a trainer's pokemon._

"Hey, patrat! What're you doing?"

A boy's voice reached them, and Touko looked up to see a boy that looked around their age running towards them. He was dressed in a yellow t-shirt and blue shorts, and brown hair peeked out of his blue cap. A bandage was on his nose, and there was a grin on his face. He stopped in front of them, and patrat started to point at her, jumping up and down.

"Think she's a strong one?" the boy asked his pokemon, ignoring her and Hilbert. The brown pokemon nodded, and kept pointing. That made the boy's grin grow wider, and he looked up to examine Touko. There was a twinkle in his eyes, and he said, "Hey, you! Want to battle me?"

Touko glanced back at Hilbert, her eyes shooting him the question, _You okay with that? _Hilbert nodded in response, looking slightly amused. So Touko beckoned her snivy forward, and turned to face the boy with her own grin. "You're on."

"Great! Patrat, use leer!" The boy shouted. "Then follow up with tackle!"

"Jade, beat him to it! Vine whip!" Touko commanded. Her snivy started to run forward, but froze in her tracks when the patrat' eyes began glowing red, giving it an intimidating look. That made the boy grin, and say, "Good, now tackle!"

The patrat started to run forward, and Touko yelled desperately, "Jade, snap out of it! Vine whip, hurry!"

To her relief, Jade unfroze and ran nimbly towards the patrat, easily dodging its tackle, and landing multiple lashes of her vines on the brown pokemon. It fell backward, with a cry of pain. Jade landed on her feet lightly, waiting for Touko's next command.

"Tackle!" she shouted, deciding that patrat would have a hard time dodging it, since it was hurt and her snivy was in close range.

"Dodge!" the boy said quickly, and to Touko's dismay, the patrat managed to jump out of the way, making Jade skid to a stop, losing time. By then the patrat was already slamming into her snivy with a tackle.

"Crap," Touko muttered under her breath. The tackle seemed to do a lot more damage than usual, and that made her think back to the leer patrat had used. _Of course,_ she thought._ Leer lowers the opponent's defence._

"Jade, go for your own tackle!" she shouted. This time the tackle landed, and the patrat wobbled on the spot before collapsing, having fainted. A grin made its way onto Touko's face, and she ran forward to pick up Jade, hugging her tightly. "We won our first trainer battle!" she exclaimed, dancing around on the spot. "All thanks to you, Jade!"

"Snivy, vy," her snivy responded, looking pleased.

True, she'd already fought Cheren and Bianca, but they hadn't technically been trainers back then. This guy probably was a real trainer.

Touko looked up to see the boy digging into his pocket, pulling out a few bills. A confused frown appeared on her face, as he made his way towards her. "Why are you paying me?"

The boy raised an eyebrow. "You don't know? It's common courtesy to pay the trainer you lost to. If you don't know that, then you must be a newbie."

"Got anything wrong with that?" she responded immediately, crossing her arms. He frowned, holding up his hands, and laughed. "Nope. Not at all. I like meeting newbies."

Touko raised her own eyebrow, but didn't question it.

"So." His frown was replaced with a wide, and rather flirtatious grin as he pressed several bills into her hands. "I don't believe we introduced ourselves. I'm youngster Jimmy. And you are...?"

Touko shuffled quickly through the bills, counting mentally in her head. _100, 110, 112 pokedollars_. She looked back up to the youngster, who was still grinning. "Uh...I'm Touko. Touko White."

"Nice name," the youngster responded, winking. "So, mind if I register you on my XTransceiver?" As he spoke, he pulled the device from his pocket, fastening it onto his wrist, which he held in front of her. "I'd like to be acquainted with you, if you don't mind."

"Er..." Touko turned to look back at Hilbert, looking for his reaction. Her companion looked like he was struggling to hold in laughter, probably at the boy's attempt of flirting. Well, to her it sure looked like he was trying to flirt.

"Uh, sure, why not?" she ventured, with an awkward laugh. If there was one thing she was bad at, it was dealing with flirty boys. Not because she got embarrassed easily, or found them cute - she was more of a tomboy, who didn't like dealing with boys who flirted. She liked boys who accepted her as one of them, and didn't think of her as just 'a girl'. Her mother often joked that she should've been born a boy. Anyway, Touko decided that she might as well add the guy as a contact - who knew, maybe he could actually be a potential friend.

He registered himself as "The Awesome Youngster Jimmy" on her XTransceiver, and she just called herself "Touko". After exchanging a quick goodbye, she and Hilbert continued down the route.

"That guy was weird," Touko began, as they walked. "I'm starting to think that all the guys in Unova are weirdos. Except, you know, you and Cheren."

Hilbert laughed. "Maybe you're right. I dunno, I guess I could say I'm kinda weird. Same goes for Cheren. Depends on what your definition of 'weird' is."

"You've got a point," she admitted.

They took a break for a while, sitting down in the shade of a tall tree. Hilbert let his pokemon out, and Touko let Jade play along with them, but warned her to be careful of getting squashed. (All of Hilbert's pokemon were considerably larger than Jade.) After a while they packed up, and continued down the route. They had a few more wild pokemon encounters, and Touko noticed how much stronger Jade seemed already. She couldn't wait until she evolved.

The outlines of buildings soon appeared in the distance, meaning that they were almost at Striaton City - her first gym challenge. ("You'll have to fight the gym leader with a pokemon that has the advantage over your starter," Hilbert had told her. "I recommend you catch another pokemon to use instead of snivy.") As Touko walked, she nearly tripped over something on the ground. Once she'd righted herself, she peered down to see a potion lying on the ground.

"Huh," she said, frowning. "Where'd that come from?"

"Lots of trainers drop things," Hilbert said, shrugging. "I've picked up things like evolution stones, potions, pokeballs..."

"It doesn't feel right taking it," Touko admitted, picking up the bottle. But she still slipped it into her bag.

"Well, I'd rather make use of it than let it stay on the ground," he replied.

He had a point. They trudged further along, and the entrance to Striaton City grew nearer. The grass turned to cement, and the buildings were a few meters away from them. Touko quickened her pace, excited, and -

"Hey! Touko, wait up!"

She and Hilbert froze, turning around to spot Bianca running towards them. The blonde was gripping a pokeball in her right hand, and stopped in front of them.

"Touko, let's have a pokemon battle!" she exclaimed excitedly. "My pokemon have become a little stronger! Please? Hey, Hilbert," she added as an afterthought, making the brunet boy chuckle.

"Uh, sure," Touko responded, reaching for her snivy's pokeball. She had recalled Jade a while back, wanting to let her rest. She pressed the release button, and Jade appeared on the ground, looking determined. "Ready, Jade?" she asked her pokemon.

"Sni!" Jade responded, narrowing her eyes, and she took that as a yes. Looking up at Bianca, she saw her friend toss a pokeball in the air. The lillipup from before appeared, now looking determined as well. Its eyes were narrowed, and its fangs were bared. It looked much more intimidating than before.

"This one's up first!" Bianca proclaimed, grinning. "Both my pokemon and I are going to give it our all!"

"Alright, Jade, use vine whip!" Touko commanded.

"Leer, lillipup!"

Lillipup's eyes started to glow red, giving it a more intimidating look. Jade started to falter, just like she did when the patrat had used leer, back with youngster Jimmy. Touko clenched her fists. "Snap out - "

But the words had barely left her mouth before Jade sped up again, managing to land a successful vine whip. The rest of the battle went in her favour, with a tackle enough to bring down the lillipup. Bianca's oshawott was no problem at all - one vine whip was enough, thanks to grass being strong against water.

"I can't believe how strong your snivy is, Touko," Bianca mused, as she handed Touko some bills. "We've only started today, yet your pokemon seems to trust you a lot."

Touko gave her friend a grateful smile. "Thanks, Bianca. That means a lot to me."

The blonde grinned back, and said, "Well, I'm going to train my pokemon a bit more here, so I won't lose next time. See ya later! Bye Hilbert!"

Then she was dashing off, before they had time to reply.

"She's right, you know," Hilbert spoke up. "Your snivy really does trust you a lot. I don't think I had that strong of a bond with my tepig when we first set off."

His praise warmed her, especially it was coming from him, a more experienced trainer. Touko laughed lightly, and shrugged. "Maybe my snivy just likes people in general."

"It's more than that," he told her, but let it drop. "Anyways, we should be going on. Striaton City's literally right here!"

_Striaton City is definitely city-sized,_ Touko thought to herself, as they walked in. Like Accumula Town, there were mainly apartment buildings, all towering over them. Several flanked them on both sides as they walked along the path, and up ahead she could see the pokemon center with more buildings on either side.

As they walked into the center of the city, Touko spotted several small streets to their left. There were more apartment buildings, and to their right was a similar layout. It was all quite overwhelming for her, a girl who had never left Nuvema Town in her life. (That she could remember, at least.)

Hilbert saw her expression, and grinned. "Wait till you see Castelia City," he told her teasingly. "It's way bigger than this city."

She laughed. "I bet I'll get lost immediately."

He opened his mouth to respond, but she cut him off. "Anyways, I'm gonna go to the pokemon center. I want to get Jade checked up, and I'll probably stay here for a few days to train and get my badge."

"Sounds good to me," Hilbert said. "I might stay a day or two and then leave earlier, just so you know."

"That's perfectly fine," Touko answered, with a smile. "So...let's go?"

* * *

They had to wait a little longer for Jade to be healed up, since the tackles she had taken after lillipup's leer had done significantly more damage. That, and added on top, the patrat's tackle. It took about ten minutes before an audino wheeled out the cart with Jade on top.

Touko jumped up from her spot on an armchair, and ran over immediately. Her snivy was looking much more alert and healthy. "Jade!" she cried in delight, and picked up her and her pokeball.

The audino beamed at them, and the nurse from the desk smiled. "Thank you for waiting. Have a nice day!"

"Audino, au," the audino added, waving.

As they left the pokemon center, Touko asked, "So is there anywhere to train around here? Before I challenge the gym?"

"There's the dreamyard," Hilbert replied immediately. "It's a popular place for beginners to train. It's located to the east of the city." He nodded in a direction as he spoke. "Just go down that street and keep going east."

"Thanks," she answered, giving him a grateful smile. "So...I guess we're splitting up for now?"

"Sure, I'm thinking of relaxing for a bit here," Hilbert said, grinning. "I'll stay the night, though, that's for sure. Good luck training."

"Oh, and one more thing," Touko said suddenly. "Do you by any chance know a Fennel? Professor Juniper told Bianca and I to look for her here.."

Hilbert tapped his chin, looking thoughtful. "I'm pretty sure she lives in that house," he said, pointing at the house directly south of the building next to the pokemon center. "The house south of the gym."

"So that's the gym," she answered, brightening up. "Awesome. And thanks again."

"No problem," he told her, and walked off. Touko decided to visit Fennel first - maybe she had something to teach her, or give her. Training could wait for now. She started walking towards the house, knocking on the door when she approached.

A little boy opened the door, frowning at her when he saw her. "What're you doing here?"

"Is there a Fennel here?" Touko asked. He shook his head. "She's busy. She's not here right now."

"Can I wait for her?" she ventured, and the boy shook his head again. He flung out his arms, as if to block the doorway. Touko bit her lip, and said, "Can I come back later, then?"

The boy nodded stiffly, and she shot him a tentative smile. "Thanks."

He said nothing in return, so she took it as her cue to leave. Touko turned and walked back onto the main street. Catching sight of the pokemon center again, she quickly reminded herself which way the dreamyard was. _East_.

As she set off through one of the streets, a grin appeared on her face. She was excited to find out what kind of place the dreamyard was. And more trainer battles as well! Who knew, maybe she'd even see Cheren or Bianca there.

"Let's go beat up some trainers, Jade!" she exclaimed cockily, her grin growing wider.

"Sni, snivy!" the pokemon on her shoulder responded.

Her first gym badge challenge was drawing nearer, and she couldn't wait.

* * *

**AN**: I'm sorry, I just had to include a short scene with that house in Accumula Town. Every time I go to Accumula Town I always have to visit that house to hear the remix of the town music! xD I can't help it, it's awesome. Please tell me I'm not the only one who does that :P

Just a question I have - would words like "crap" and "hell" and "damn" and such need a T rating? I changed it to T just in case, but I'm not sure if that's just me being paranoid. (I've heard much worse 'swears' before I turned thirteen, though.) So would a K+ rating be fine? Anyways, the gym battle will probably be next chapter as well, and then some other stuff. As always, please review if you can ~ It means a lot to me! :)


	5. Chapter 4: A Fiery Battle

"Fine, you win. Here's your money," the girl grumbled, carelessly slapping some bills down on Touko's hand. A few fluttered down to the ground, but she didn't bother picking them up. All the girl said was, "I want a rematch later, once I train my pathetic excuse of a pokemon."

She shot the purrloin walking slowly behind her a cold glare as she stormed off. "Maybe I should catch a different pokemon, to replace you. You can't seem to win _any_ battles for me."

That infuriated Touko. _She's demonstrating exactly what Team Plasma had been talking about. Maybe they weren't so crazy after all. _The brunette trainer stomped forward, and yanked hard on the girl's arm.

"Ow! What the hell was that for?" the girl demanded, spinning around.

"For treating your pokemon like a piece of crap," Touko retorted, putting her hands on her hips. "Stop blaming your purrloin for your mistakes."

The girl's eyes narrowed. "_My_ mistakes? You must be blind, if you didn't notice how weak my purrloin was."

"_You_ must be blind to not notice how miserable it looked," said Touko fiercely. The girl shot her a withering glare, but didn't say anything, as she stormed off. Touko considered going after her again, but she reluctantly decided not to. It wouldn't do any good, and there was no point reasoning with the idiotic.

The encounter with the girl made Touko confused. She'd easily ridiculed Team Plasma's speech back then, but she'd just seen an example of what they were talking about. What if they'd been right? But she could also imagine the pain that trainers all over the region would suffer if their pokemon were taken away from them.

Shaking her head, the brunette made her way further into the dreamyard. Where she was right now was a large stretch of grassy land, with the ruins of the dreamyard to her left. To her right was a dark-looking forest. She decided to fight all the trainers she could, before making her way to explore the ruins.

The sun was setting now, and Touko decided to stay for a bit longer. Then she'd check in at the pokemon center and reserve a room for tonight. She was planning to do some more training tomorrow.

A boy nearby was bent over two patrat as she approached. He had the typical look of a youngster, and seemed to be directing the patrat to do something. A lillipup stood beside him, occasionally yipping. He didn't seem to notice Touko, who had stopped beside him to watch, looking curious.

"That's it! Perry, now you jump on top and..."

One of the patrat chittered, as if to protest. The patrat beside it jumped up, but landed awkwardly, causing the patrat on the bottom to fall over. They collapsed on the ground, the patrat on the bottom looking dizzy.

"Ugh. That's the sixth time we've done it, but failed," the boy muttered to himself. Raising his voice, he said, "Don't worry, Barry, we'll work on your balance so you can hold up Perry. Why don't you practice a bit with Larry?"

The lillipup beside him bounced in excitement, barking excitedly. "Pup, lillipup!"

The boy turned, spotting Touko. His mouth formed a small _o_ as he asked, "What are you doing here?"

Touko gave him a sheepish smile. "Sorry. I was curious as to what you were doing. I'm sorry if I'm bothering you."

His mouth formed a grin. "No problem! I'm just practicing for musicals in Nimbasa City. I mean, I'm not there yet, and I've got a long way to go, but it's good to be prepared."

"So you're not a trainer?" she asked, feeling slightly disappointed. His patrat and lillipup looked quite strong, and Jade would benefit from the experience. To her relief, the boy shook his head. "I'm a trainer all right! Battling isn't my priority, but if you're challenging me..."

He turned to his lillipup. "Ready to go, Larry?"

Touko let her snivy jump down from her shoulder. "Jade, you got this?"

"Snivy, sni!" was her pokemon's determined answer, and Touko grinned at the boy. "Let's go!"

The lillipup's tackles hit hard, but Jade took it down without too much struggle. Touko had to use a potion, though, to keep her going through the next two patrat. Perry was taken down with a few vine whips, and Barry soon followed. But after the boy's last patrat had fainted, Jade collapsed as well.

Touko quickly ran to her pokemon, and recalled her to her pokeball. The youngster did the same with his three pokemon, and straightened up afterwards.

"You're strong," he told her simply. "Are you a new trainer?"

She stood up, and laughed. "Yeah. Can you tell?"

The boy shrugged, and reached into his pockets. He froze, a sudden horrified look appearing on his face. Touko frowned, perplexed. "You okay?"

He gave her an awkward laugh. "Uh, yeah. The thing is, I wasn't planning to battle today, and I'm kinda broke...so I don't have money with me to pay you."

"Don't worry about it," she told him, chuckling slightly. "I wish you luck with your musical practice."

"Thanks!" the boy grinned, and with a parting wave, Touko turned to walk back to Striaton City. She wanted to heal up Jade before coming back for some more battles. But she hadn't gone far when -

"Excuse me, miss! Could I talk to you?"

She turned around, seeing a little girl running up to her. The girl had black hair cut in a short bob, and a pair of red overalls on. Her eyes were shining, as she clutched a pokeball tightly in her hand.

"I just saw you battling Joey," she began breathlessly. It took Touko a moment to realize that the boy must have been Joey. "You were really strong to take down all his pokemon with just a snivy. I've been looking for a worthy trainer for ages!"

Touko frowned, confused. "Worthy of what?"

"Are you going to challenge the gym?" the girl asked eagerly. When Touko nodded, her eyes lit up. "Then I have the perfect gift for you. Snivy will be weak to Chili's pansear, and you'll be fighting him for your badge. I have a panpour, which my brother gave to me to entrust to a strong trainer. It's a water-type, so it'll be perfect for fighting Chili!"

"You want to give it to me?" Touko asked, giving her a grateful smile. "That's so kind of you. I was just planning to catch another pokemon to fight Chili with."

"So you want my panpour, then?" the girl responded.

"Definitely. Thank you so much," Touko told her, grinning. The girl beamed, and reached out her hand with the pokeball. Touko stretched her own hand forward, ready to take the pokeball, when the girl gasped. She raised her eyebrows at the younger girl in confusion. "Something wrong?"

"I have a better idea," the girl exclaimed, tucking the pokeball back in her pocket. "How would you like a feebas? My brother went fishing yesterday, and he gave me it. It's even holding a prism scale that I have, too," she added, winking.

_A feebas? With a prism scale?_ Touko thought to herself. _That rings a bell, but I can't quite remember the significance of a prism scale._ Out loud she told the girl, "Sure, I guess I'll take the feebas. It's a water-type too, right?"

"Yep," the girl responded, grinning. "Oh, and when you get it, call it out of its pokeball, okay? Something good will happen. Trust me."

She reached into a bag she had slung over her shoulder, and pulled out another pokeball, which she handed to Touko quickly. The brunette girl took it with a thanks, and studied it for a moment. The pokeball was different from a normal one. It was painted blue, with crisscrossing black lines patterned on top.

"It's a netball," the girl told her, seeing her curiosity. "Works especially well on bug and water types."

"Thanks," Touko told her again, and pressed the release button on the netball. It opened, and in a flash of red light, a fish-like pokemon flopped onto the ground. It was light brown, and had darker spots on its body. It had dull blue fins, and pink lips. In its left fin, it was holding a beautiful scale, coloured with shades of pink and blue.

"Feebas, fee," the pokemon said, and Touko watched, frowning. What was going to happen?

All of a sudden, the prism scale started to glow brightly, surrounding the feebas with its light. Touko shielded her eyes, her heart suddenly pumping. She couldn't see anything, but the feeebas's body seemed to be changing. A few moments later, the light died down to reveal a completely different pokemon in its place.

"Mi, milotic," the new pokemon said softly.

It was slightly serpentine shaped, with a cream coloured body. It had long and pink eyebrow-like fins above its eyes that extended down, and red eyes. Its tail was beautiful - a blue and pink diamond patterned design, with black outlines. The end of its tail resembled a fan, with four blue and pink, overlapping fins. Now she remembered - giving a feebas to another trainer while it was holding a prism scale caused it to evolve into a milotic.

"What did I tell you?" the little girl asked, a grin on her face. "A beautiful milotic."

Touko took out her pokedex and scanned her new pokemon. It was a female, had the ability marvel scale, and the moves splash, water gun, water sport, and wrap. She lowered her pokedex to study her milotic. "She needs a nickname," was the first thing she said.

For a few minutes, Touko brainstormed nicknames. She sifted through several at a time, frowning as she thought, until one caught her attention.

_Calypso_.

She had no idea if the name had any meaning to it, but it sounded pretty and simple. Perfect for milotic, which was said to be one of the most beautiful pokemon.

"Calypso," she said out loud. The milotic beside her shifted slightly, and she grinned. "Calypso," she repeated. "Milotic, your new name is Calypso."

"That's a perfect name!" the little girl squealed, startling Touko. "Good luck with your gym challenge!"

Change of plans, then. She'd train up Calypso a bit, and then head back to the pokemon center.

* * *

After exploring the ruins a bit, training up Calypso on the way, Touko headed back to the pokemon center. It was much darker now, and she was tired out from all of the day's events. She yawned as she walked through the center's sliding doors.

"Good evening. How may I help you?" The nurse asked her, as she approached the desk. Touko took out both Jade's and Calpyso's pokeballs, and gave her a quick smile. "I'd like it if you could heal both of them, and I'd also like to reserve a room for tonight."

The nurse began typing. "Any status conditions?"

Touko had been used to those questions by now. "No. But my snivy and milotic both took some hard hits today."

The nurse nodded, and said, "I'll just check over them quickly." She pressed the release buttons, and both her pokemon appeared on the floor. The nurse took a moment to examine them, and called, "Audino, if you please?"

An audino came out of a door behind the nurse's desk, wheeling a cart. The nurse recalled Jade and Calypso to their pokeballs, and placed the pokeballs on the cart. The audino beamed, and wheeled them back through the door.

"It should take about ten minutes," the nurse said to Touko, who nodded in return.

"You wanted to reserve a room as well? How many nights?"

Touko took a moment to think. She'd need one night for sure, and probably another for a day of training. The day after that she could probably challenge the gym...probably.

"Two nights," she answered. The nurse nodded, and fished out a key from her desk, which she handed to Touko.

"Room seven, on the left," she said. "Checkouts no later than twelve pm."

Touko thanked her, and sat down in a chair nearby hospital wait for her pokemon. When the audino returned with her pokemon, she immediately set out to look for her room. The door had a bright "7" painted on it, and turning the key in the slot, she opened the door.

It was plain but nice. The walls were a creamy shade of beige, and there was a dark brown carpet on the floor. There was one bed, a table and chair, as well as a small bathroom.

Touko dropped her bag onto the bed, and checked the time on the analog clock on the table_. 7:29_. Her stomach rumbled suddenly, reminding her she hadn't eaten all day in her haste to train. Her pokemon were probably hungry as well. She decided to check out some restaurants in the city - she'd earned a lot of money from trainer battles, along with the money her mother had given her.

Touko settled for a simple restaurant a few buildings away from the pokemon center. _Dreamyard Diner_ the sign read, in white cursive against a black background. Pictures of munna decorated the sign.

She ordered a sandwich and a glass of pecha berry juice, as well as two bowls of pokemon food for Jade and Calypso. Her milotic had a hard time fitting in their booth, but they managed. (Touko ended up squished up against the wall.) The sandwich was delicious, and the same could be said for the juice. As she drained the last drop from the glass, she burped - very loudly and unladylike.

"Touko!" a voice squealed. Touko jumped and turned her head around, finally spotting Bianca waving at her from a few booths back. The blonde jumped up and ran over. "I didn't recognize you until you burped - well, I couldn't even see you 'cause of your milotic - "

She broke off, as if suddenly realizing something. "Wait a second, you have a _milotic?_ Where in the name of kyurem did you get it?"

"Someone gave it to me, in the dreamyard," Touko responded, chuckling slightly at her friend's amazement.

Bianca's mouth opened wide. "No fair," she pouted. "I just came here from the dreamyard, too." Touko opened her mouth to reply, but the blonde suddenly grinned. "So what's its name? Is it a girl or a boy?"

"I named her Calypso," she answered, smiling as she gently petted the milotic's head. "She'll really be useful for the gym battle."

"I wish you luck for that!" Bianca told her, and ran back to her own booth before Touko's goodbye had even reached her lips. The brunette laughed lightly, looking after her friend before recalling her pokemon into their pokeballs. She stood up and picked up her tray, ready to leave. Now that Bianca had actually wished her luck, and she knew for sure she was challenging the gym, there were butterfree in her stomach. What if she wasn't strong enough to beat the gym?

* * *

Touko spent the next day training hard at the dreamyard. She battled nonstop, and took a lot of time roaming in the ruins, looking for wild pokemon to battle. Bianca showed up as well, and they trained together for a while, before the blonde decided to go explore the city a bit more. Touko had a quick lunch at the same diner she'd eaten at the day before, and went right back to training.

She also visited the trainers' school, and took a lesson. Cheren was there too, and afterwards they'd battled. She'd won, but it'd been lucky that she'd had Calypso to take care of his tepig. Cheren had recalled his purrloin with a shake of his head.

"I can't beat you, even after we've become trainers," he'd said. "That means I still have to get stronger."

That made Touko wonder, was being strong _all_ there was to being a trainer?

Now she headed to the building Hilbert had said was the gym. Her heart had started to pound loudly. What if she lost horribly? Would she have the strength to continue on? Had her training been enough?

There was only one way to find out. Touko flung open the door.

She didn't know what she'd been expecting. A large battlefield, maybe? Or a cool, dark room, with a door leading to a battlefield. Maybe a dungeon filled with fire, water, and grass, to represent the three gym leaders. Any kind of battlefield, really. But what greeted her was a dimly lit restaurant.

It looked pretty much normal. The floor was covered with a mahogany red carpet, and the walls were the same shade of red. People sat in groups around round tables, covered with white tablecloths. Each table had a lit candle on it, and several waiters and waitresses walked around. Touko stood in the doorway, frowning. _This_ was the gym?

Maybe she'd remembered Hilbert's instructions incorrectly. Maybe it wasn't this building. But what other building could the gym be?

"Excuse me, miss, you look lost. Are you looking for someone?"

A waiter approached her with a kind smile. He had blue hair, which had been styled so that it covered his left eye. The eye that she could see was blue as well. He was wearing a typical waiter outfit, and a blue bow tie.

"Actually, I was just wondering if I went to the right place. You see, my friend told me that this was the Striaton Gym - "

The man cut her off, with a sudden twinkle in his eye. "Then you've come to the right place, my friend. My name is Cress, pleased to make your acquaintance. Chili, Cilan!"

At his call, two more waiters came waltzing towards them. One had fiery red hair, and the other had light green hair. Touko watched, still slightly confused, as they stopped in front of her. The gym was a restaurant? And the gym leaders were _waiters?_

"My name is Cilan, and these are my brothers," the green-haired one said, smiling pleasantly. "And yes, we are the gym leaders of Striaton City. Please follow us."

He started walking through the restaurant, leading her to the back of the room, Chili and Cress beside him. "Are you a challenger? If so, which starter did you pick?"

"Snivy," Touko answered, still feeling slightly surprised. This wasn't what she'd been expecting at all. The fiery haired one, Chili, she assumed, grinned at that.

"Looks like I'll be fighting you, then," he said, flashing her a confident grin. "I can't wait."

"First you'll have to make your way through our gym, though," Cress said. He turned and snapped his fingers at a man standing near them, leaning against the wall. "Donald, if you please?"

"Your gym -?"

Touko's question was cut off as the wall of the back of the building started to slide out of the way. It revealed an extension to the building, another room behind. A red wall, with a simple design of fire on it blocked the way forward. On the floor, she could see three large designs. One was green, with a design of a leaf. One was blue, with a design of a water drop. The third had the same fire design on it.

Her mouth opened in shock, and Cress chuckled lightly. "That's our gym, young lady. Surprised?"

"You could say," she blurted, and smiled sheepishly. "Sorry. I wasn't expecting that. A gym built into a restaurant, I mean."

"Donald, explain the rules, please. She's a new challenger, and I presume it's her first time challenging a gym," said Cilan, turning to the man standing by them. To her he said, "We'll meet you at the back of the gym."

They left, walking into the gym. Touko watched, confused, as Chili stepped on one of the designs on the ground. The wall slide open, and closed after they walked through. The man, Donald, laughed at her puzzled expression. He had white hair, was wearing a white shirt and red pants, as well as sunglasses.

"So first up, see those designs on the ground?" he asked. When she nodded, he continued. "The red one represents fire, the green one represents grass, and the blue one represents water. The same goes for the walls."

"Got it." Touko nodded.

"To get past the walls, you have to step on the design of the the type that is most effective against the type shown on the wall," he continued. "You will most likely encounter several trainers as you progress. You are allowed to return to the pokemon center to heal between battles. When you reach the end, you will fight one of the gym leaders. A referee will explain further rules. Understood?"

"Understood," she repeated firmly, going over his instructions in her head._ It shouldn't be too hard_. Donald grinned at her, and gave her a thumbs up. "Good luck, then."

She thanked him, and walked into the gym. The first wall showed fire, then. So the type that was most effective was water. Holding her breath, she stepped onto the water drop design. There was a pause, and the wall slid out of the way, to reveal another wall further on. That one was painted blue, with the water drop design. She also caught sight of a waiter strolling along.

_He must be a trainer_, Touko thought, as she stepped forward. She gripped Calypso's pokeball tightly in her right hand as she made her way towards the wall. Just before she reached the three designs on the ground, the waiter stopped in front of her, his eyes lighting up.

"You're challenging the gym, aren't you?" he asked eagerly. When she nodded, he pulled out a pokeball from his apron. "Well, you're going to have to get through me! Go, lillipup!"

The familiar form of the canine pokemon appeared on the ground, and Touko threw her own pokeball. "Calypso, you're on!"

Her milotic appeared on the ground, coiling up and stretching back out. Through the course of their training, she'd learned the move refresh as well. Touko's pokedex also told her that Calypso was very close to levelling up, meaning that she would learn water pulse soon. That would definitely be beneficial against Chili.

"Calypso, start out with water gun!" she commanded. Her milotic immediately opened her mouth, and shot out a jet of water at the lillipup. It hit it square in the face, causing the canine pokemon to stumble back.

"Lillipup, let's show them we don't let one attack stop us!" The waiter cried determinedly. "Use tackle - and don't give them mercy!"

"Hit it back with another water gun!"

"Dodge!"

Calypso managed to hit the lillipup with a water gun, but that didn't stop it from moving. It rammed into her hard, sending them both back. The lillipup jumped back to its feet, and bared its mouth.

"Calypso, get it with wrap!" Touko shouted. "Then use water gun!"

Her milotic snaked forward, and wrapped herself tightly around the lillipup. The canine pokemon cried out, and Calypso tightened her grip.

"Lillipup, bite it or something!" The waiter called out. Touko saw the pokemon open its mouth, ready to bite, and shouted, "Now, water gun!"

The lillipup bit down just as Calypso opened her mouth. From where she was standing, Touko could see the bite marks, just deep enough to draw a bit of blood. That made her milotic jerk back, hissing in pain, at the same time letting go of the lillipup. The waiter grinned, and called, "Lillipup, bite again!"

"Hurry, water gun!"

Luckily, the jet of water was enough to knock the lillipup back into the wall, and caused it to faint from the impact. Quickly Touko grabbed a potion, and treated her milotic's wounds with it. She was hoping to make it through all the trainers before heading back to the pokemon center for a quick healing session.

"You okay?" she asked softly, once she'd finished spraying the potion. "You did great."

"Milotic," her pokemon purred in reply, looking content. With a grin, Touko recalled Calypso back to her pokeball, and turned to look at the waiter. He was spraying his lillipup with a potion as well. When he finished and stood up, she shot him a quick smile. "Thanks for the battle."

"You're pretty strong, for a new trainer," he answered, as he handed a few bills to her. "I wish you luck."

Then he was walking to the side to wait, and she was left facing the wall, her next obstacle.

Blue, which meant water. The most effective type, if she remembered correctly, should be grass. Touko stepped onto the leaf design, and let out a relieved sigh when the wall slid open. There was another wall further on, and it was green. She also spotted a waitress bent down near two pokemon - a patrat and a purrloin.

As expected, the waitress stopped her with an eager grin, challenging her to a battle. Touko let Jade take care of the purrloin, and Calypso faced the patrat. To her pleasure, once they'd won, a blue light surrounded Calypso for a few moments, indicating that she had learned a new move. Touko quickly checked with her pokedex - and confirmed that it was water pulse. The waitress paid her as well.

"Do you know when I'll meet the gym leaders?" Touko asked her, as she slipped her snivy's pokeball into her bag. The waitress smiled, and responded, "They're right behind this wall. Good luck - I'm sure you can beat Chili!"

Thanking her, Touko quickly headed back. She exited the gym, and ran to the pokemon center. There she waited impatiently for a few minutes, and when the audino came back with her pokemon, immediately grabbed her pokeballs.

"Thanks!" she shouted back, as she ran through the door. Her heart was pounding as she made her way back into the gym, and through it again. At last she stopped in front of the last wall, painted green with the leaf design.

This one was obvious. She stepped on the design of fire, and watched as the wall slid open. Behind it, like the waitress had said, stood Chili, Cilan, and Cress. (And a referee). The four were standing on a large red platform, which reminded a Touko of a stage. She also saw balcony seats, which had already filled up with a few people. _Damn it, they're probably going to be watching_, Touko thought._ I can't afford to lose._

She walked towards the stage, lifting her chin up, fixing a confident look on her face. Chili walked forward to meet her, as she walked up the stairs.

"Looks like you made it through," he said, with a grin. "I can't wait to see your strength!"

He snapped his fingers, and the stage suddenly split into two with a loud screech. Both halves started sliding out, revealing a battlefield underneath. When it had stopped moving, Touko heard some voices from the balcony.

"Go, go, Chili!"

"Show us your hot moves!"

She glanced up to see several girls, standing up and dressed in cheerleader costumes. One of them was waving her pom poms around wildly, while the others held flags saying things like "Chili for the win!" and "Burn 'em down!"

The whole spectacle almost made Touko laugh, but she held it in as she took her spot on one side of the battlefield, and Chili stood on the other side.

"Ready?" he called, grinning. "It's time to play with fire! Lillipup, it's your turn to shine!"

He tossed a pokeball, just as several squeals were heard from the balcony. Touko ignored them, and pulled out her own pokeball. "Jade, let's do this!"

Her snivy appeared on the ground, staring down the lillipup. The referee took his spot on the side of the battlefield, and raised his arms for attention.

"Gym leaders may only use their two designated pokemon. Trainers can use as many pokemon as they have. The first trainer to have all their pokemon faint loses."

"Alright, lillipup, show them a bite!" Chili shouted immediately. His lillipup started running towards Jade, surprisingly agile. It took Touko by surprise, and she quickly called, desperate to make up for lost time, "Jade, hit it away with a vine whip!"

To her relief, her snivy was much more fast than her. Jade leaped into the air, just as the lillipup neared, producing two vines from her body. The snake pokemon lashed out at the canine pokemon, causing the latter to flinch back and yip.

"Not bad, miss," Chili said, giving her a wink. "I'm curious to see how you react to this - lillipup, do the thing!"

His pokemon's eyes immediately started glowing red, which stopped Jade in the middle of her attack. The snivy froze, and lost in the glare of the lillipup's eyes, stopped attacking. The lillipup appeared to grow bigger, and suddenly charged at Jade, biting down ferociously on her tail. Jade cried out, and stumbled backwards.

"Jade!" Touko cried in panic.

"Now lillipup, finish with a tackle!" Chili commanded, eyes twinkling.

"Dodge, and use your own tackle!" Touko called out, feeling desperate. She could hear cheering from the balcony, probably from the fangirls of Chili. That didn't help her nerves at all.

Once again, Jade made a fantastic play. She managed to dodge at the last second, and lashed out at lillipup with one vine. That flung it backwards, and there was a small dust cloud from the impact. Touko crossed her fingers, breathing out in relief when it cleared to reveal the lillipup fainted.

"Lillipup is unable to battle. The winner is snivy!" The referee proclaimed, to groans from the balcony.

"Good job, girl," Touko whispered softly to Jade. The snivy made a content noise, and gave a pleased grin, before Touko hugged her and recalled her to a pokeball.

Chili looked taken aback, but was quick to take out another pokeball. He sent out a pansear next, as expected, and smirked. "Pansear, it's time to light up our opponents!"

Touko took out Calypso's pokeball, and smirked back. "I don't think so. We're gonna hose you down!"

Calypso appeared on the battlefield, looking big compared to pansear. For a moment, Chili's grin wavered, but he quickly composed himself. "Pansear, let's show them that type advantages aren't everything! Fury swipes!"

"Dodge!" Touko cried, but Calypso, not being in her natural environment, didn't manage to. Pansear landed several scratches before the serpentine pokemon jerked back.

"Water pulse, hurry!"

"Fury swipes once more!"

Her milotic opened her mouth, projecting a large bubble of water towards pansear. The bubble confined the monkey pokemon, before popping. Pansear stumbled backwards, looking dizzy. It raised a paw and slashed itself.

_It caused confusion!_ Touko thought in delight. _This should be an easy fight._ Out loud she said, "Calypso, finish with a water gun!"

"Snap out of it, pansear!" Chili demanded, from the other side of the battlefield. But it was too late. Calypso shot a jet of water at pansear, and a second before it reached it, the monkey pokemon's eyes turned alert, and it opened its mouth in shock. But the water gun was already soaking its fur, and it fell back, fainted.

The referee began speaking. "Pansear is unable to battle, so the winner is milotic! And that means that the winner of this match is the challenger!"

By then, the groans from the balcony had turned into wails and disappointed squeals. Touko paid no attention, and instead ran to Calypso. Her milotic looked tired, and the scratch marks looked painful, but the pokemon managed to close its eyes and make a happy sound. Touko hugged her, and recalled her back to her pokeball as well.

When she straightened up, Chili was approaching her with a small, hexagonal shaped box, Cress and Cilan behind. It was dark blue, and inside was a red cushion with a badge lying on top. It reminded her of a lightning bolt, but coloured blue, red, and green.

"Here's your reward for winning the match," he told her, smiling. "The Trio Badge - proof that you successfully beat me!"

Touko couldn't even form words as she slowly reached forward and took the badge. It was shiny, so very shiny, and absolutely _beautiful_. She studied it in her hands, and looked up to see Cress holding out something to her. It was a small disc, which she took with a puzzled expression.

"It's TM83, work up," Cilan explained, and she nodded in understanding. A TM, or Technical Machine. She slipped the TM into her bag, and pulled out her badge case, which she put her new badge into.

"Thank you," Touko told the three, a wide grin on her face. They smiled back at her in return, and she turned to leave. "It was nice meeting you guys. I gotta go - more training, and the next badge!"

She took off skipping, joyful and happy, and the three gym leaders looked at her retreating figure with amused faces.

"She'll go far," Chili said simply, and his brothers nodded.

"One day, I can see her as a blazing fire. One that won't be put out easily, and won't go down without a fight. One that will burn forever and eternally."

* * *

**AN**: Battles are my downfall, aha. I don't get how people make them so exciting and stuff. xD If there's one thing I need to improve on, it's definitely battle scenes. I also found it hard to describe the use of the move water pulse, hah. Anyways, when I wrote the part "Lillipup, do the thing", all I could think of afterwards was Varrick saying "do the thing" to Zhu Li. :p (Legend of Korra yeah!)

Next chapter we deal with Team Plasma and munna and musharna! Well, not us, but Touko. You know what I mean. I really appreciate it if you take the time to read my fanfiction, and I appreciate every favourite, follow, and review on this story as well. Until next time! ~ :)


	6. Chapter 5: Nightmares in the Dreamyard

A stupid grin was plastered on Touko's face as she walked out of the gym.

She held her badge case in her hands, unable to stop staring at her new badge. The Trio Badge glinted brightly in the sunlight, and she reached over a hand to gently touch it, as if it was a priceless jewel. Though, to her it was. Proof that she was a trainer. Proof that she was on her way to becoming even stronger.

_I should call my mom! _She thought suddenly. Quickly, she turned on her XTransceiver, and dialled her mother. A few seconds later, her mother's worried face appeared on the screen.

"Touko! Are you all right?"

Her grin grew even wider, if possible. "Yeah, I'm perfectly fine. Mom, I just won my first gym badge!"

She held up her badge case in front of the screen, showing her new Trio Badge. Her mother's face lit up.

"Oh darling, a Trio Badge already?" her mother exclaimed. "I never got mine as fast as you did. You kids must be very talented. I'm proud to be your mother."

They chatted for a little longer, until Touko became aware that someone was watching her. At first she felt creeped out, but relaxed when she noticed the little boy back from Fennel's house. He was standing nearby, giving her a meaningful look.

"Look mom, I gotta go now," she said quickly to her mother. "I promise I'll call again, okay?"

Her mother smiled brightly, though her eyes looked a bit sad. "Off to get your second gym badge? Good luck, Touko. I love you."

Her mother hung up before Touko got a chance to say "I love you" back. Feeling a slight pang of sadness, she pushed it away and turned to meet the little boy. He had started tapping his foot on the ground in impatience.

"Fennel requests your presence," was all he said, before he started walking towards the house. She took it as a cue to follow him, and as she did, asked, "For what?"

He shrugged. "Dunno."

No more words were exchanged between them as they walked into the house. The boy directed her upstairs, and left when Touko started going up. She walked into a room (that looked more like a lab) to see a woman sitting down at a desk, muttering to herself. Touko cleared her throat, and the woman looked up.

She looked just like Professor Juniper had said (assuming she was Fennel, though). Her black hair went down to her waist, and a pair of glasses was perched on her nose. She was dressed in a white lab coat, and was studying several papers on the table.

"Oh, you're Touko, aren't you?" she asked, smiling. "Nice to meet you! My name is Fennel, and I'm one of Professor Juniper's friends. She asked me to help you and your friends out on your journeys. Oh, where are my manners? Come, have a seat."

Fennel beckoned at the chair on the other side of the desk she was seated at, and Touko did as she said.

"I research trainers, actually," the woman continued. "And yes, I'm a scientist. I have something to give to you..."

She reached into her lab coat pocket and pulled out a disc, which she handed to Touko. The brunette studied it, knowing it was either a TM or HM.

"The HM for cut," Fennel told her, beaming. "It allows your pokemon to get enough strength to cut down a large tree blocking the way. You'll probably need it on several occasions. Though you'll probably be able to squeeze past a lot of trees, some of them may be too hard to. This'll come in handy, and save you some time."

Touko thanked her, and slipped the HM into her bag. She looked back up at Fennel curiously. "Thank you. Why did you want me?"

"I also have a small request for you," the woman answered, clasping her hands together. "Do you know of the dreamyard?"

Touko nodded, and Fennel smiled. "Good. Then could you collect some dream mist for me? Munna produce it, and there's tons of them in the dreamyard. I'd appreciate it a lot." The woman laughed awkwardly, as she patted the stack of papers in front of her. "I've got a lot of stuff to organize. I'll give you something that I've been developing once you come back. It'll help you on you journey."

The brunette trainer nodded again, and shrugged. "Sure, that's fine."

Fennel's smile grew even wider. "Thank you so much!"

With a quick goodbye, Touko left the house, headed for the dreamyard. She'd planned to set out to Route 3 immediately, but it looked like she'd have to do that later. Oh well. It wouldn't do any harm to help out a friend of the professor's.

* * *

It was extremely hot by the time Touko reached the dreamyard, so she was glad for the cool breeze that had picked up. She knew munna usually appeared in the tall grass, so she'd have to go into the ruins.

Touko made her way through the ruins, looking around for any sign of a munna, when she heard a voice shout her name. "Toukooo! Wait for me!"

Bianca was running towards her, looking out of breath. The blonde gasped out as she approached, "Fennel told me to help you. She wants dream mist from a munna, right?"

"Right," Touko responded, giving her friend a quick smile. "I'm just looking for a munna."

They strolled around for a while, and Touko told Bianca about her recent battle with Chili, and the Trio Badge. Bianca listened with wide eyes, and an awed expression.

"You got your first badge already?" she exclaimed, looking awestruck. "Wow, Touko. You even beat Cheren to it. I think he's challenging the gym right now, in fact. I wonder if he's winning. He was really calm about it this morning when I met him in the pokemon center."

"He's probably winning, knowing him," Touko laughed in return.

"Did ya hear that, Touko?" Bianca interrupted suddenly. She had stopped, cupping a hand around her ear. "It came from behind that wall!"

The two trainers climbed over the broken down wall, and into a small clearing surrounded by patches of tall grass.

"I think I see one right there!" Bianca squealed suddenly, pointing. Sure enough, a moment later, a munna floated out from the tall grass. "Munna, mun," it said, hovering in the air in front of them. A small haze of pink mist began drifting out of it slowly.

"That must be the dream mist," Touko muttered to herself. "Bianca, how exactly do we collect - "

She broke off as two people suddenly ran in front of them, surrounding the munna. They were dressed in silver costumes, with the familiar P crest on them. _Team Plasma! _She started to step forward, reaching for Jade's pokeball as she did so.

"Make some dream mist, munna!" one of them shouted, kicking the pokemon. Touko's fists clenched, and she shouted, "What the _hell_ do you think you're doing?"

That caused them both to look up. The one who had been kicking the munna, a man, narrowed his eyes.

"We're getting dream mist, you idiot," he replied hotly. The grunt beside him - a female, nodded. "The dream mist munna and musharna create can show us other people's dreams. We're planning to manipulate the foolish people's dreams to convince them to release their pokemon!"

"You're sick," Touko retorted, glaring.

"And kicking a pokemon in the process? That's cruel!" Bianca added. "Aren't you trainers too?"

"We're trainers, but we're fighting for a different cause," the man responded. "Unlike you two, we're fighting for the freedom of pokemon."

He turned and started kicking the munna again, his female companion joining in this time. "Make some dream mist, munna!"

"Mun..." the pokemon protested feebly. The pink mist continued to drift out, but at a much slower rate. It looked like the munna was trying to hold in its dream mist from Team Plasma.

"Stop!" Bianca cried, panicked.

"Jade, show these idiots that they're plain stupid!" Touko shouted, tossing her pokeball. She'd had enough. Her snivy appeared on the ground, and immediately produced two vines from her body. She leaped forward and smacked the man with them, causing him to cry out. The female stopped to face Touko, as if she'd suddenly realized that she needed to deal with her.

"That's it, you're going down," the Plasma man snarled, reaching for a pokeball. "It's time to liberate your pokemon from you!"

He tossed a pokeball, and a patrat came out. "Patrat, use tackle on the snivy!"

"Jade, dodge and use vine whip!" Touko shouted. She was vaguely aware of the female grunt sending out a purrloin from behind her, and Bianca sending out her oshawott to fight it. Within a few seconds, Touko heard a water gun whooshing past her ear, and the angry shout of her friend.

Her own battle was going well. Jade had successfully dodged the patrat's tackle, and had landed a vine whip as well. Another tackle was enough to do the trick, and the grunt's patrat collapsed on the ground.

He swore loudly, and at the same time, the female grunt's purrloin fainted to a well-aimed water gun from Bianca's oshawott. Both Plasma grunts returned their pokemon to their pokeballs, and glared at Touko and Bianca, who were both facing them with determined faces.

"Tch," the female grunt muttered. "Lost to a couple of _kids_."

"Ghetsis won't be happy," the male grunt added, a trace of panic entering his voice. "Forget the kids. Let's get the dream mist and leave! If all else fails, grab the munna!"

They turned and started kicking the munna again. The pitiful sounds the pokemon was making made Touko's heart clench. One glance at Bianca told her that her friend felt the same way. The brunette stepped forward, and shouted, "Stop! Or else - "

"Or else what, kid?" the female grunt sneered.

"Unless you haven't noticed, we have pokemon, and yours have all fainted," Touko responded coldly. She took out Calypso's pokeball as she spoke, as if to prove her point. "My milotic does some powerful water pulses. The same can be said for my snivy's vine whips. Care to test out my patience? I won't stop you."

She put as much confidence into her voice as she could, and it seemed to work. The female grunt hesitated, but the other grunt punched her in her stomach. "Stop listening to her! Now's the time we grab the stupid pokemon and leave - "

He froze, and his eyes landed on something behind Touko. Something like fear entered his eyes, and the same could be said for his companion. Slowly, dread in her stomach, Touko turned around to look.

It was Ghetsis. Dressed in his fancy robe and accessories, the man made his way towards them, gaze cold. Touko half expected him to swat aside her and Bianca like mere wurmple as he approached, but he completely ignored them. His gaze was focused on the grunts.

"What are you two doing?" he said coldly. "Why are you goofing off?"

The female grunt dipped her head into a quick and clumsy bow, looking panicked. "Leader Ghetsis, we tried. But these girls were too strong - "

"_Silence_!" Ghetsis bellowed, and the grunt fell silent. The male grunt beside her was practically shaking in fear. Touko almost laughed, but what happened next drained all the laughter from her.

Another Ghetsis appeared on the other side of the grunts. From beside her, Bianca gasped loudly. The second Ghetsis began speaking, in a harsh voice to match the first one. "If you fail to fulfill your duties..."

The male grunt seemed to have forgotten all about Touko and Bianca's presence. "This i-isn't Ghetsis when he's trying to gather followers," he stuttered, "nor Ghetsis when he's controlling poeple by tricking them with speeches - "

" - this is Ghetsis when a plan has failed, and when he's about to issue a punishment!" the female grunt finished, eyes wide with fear.

Both the second Ghetsis and first Ghetsis disappeared, while a third appeared behind the grunts, shouting, "...You shall suffer the punishments!"

"Quick, let's get out of here!" the female grunt cried, and without another word, both Team Plasma grunts ran out like frightened skitty before a pack of houndoom.

Touko's mind was on overdrive, trying to figure out what had just happened. That didn't make any sense at all. _Three_ Ghetsis, all appearing at once? What was going on?

The answer to her question came immediately. The third Ghetsis flickered and disappeared. In its place was a pokemon, one that resembled munna. It was larger, though, and had a trunk-like mouth. A lot of pink mist was drifting out of it, as it hovered in front of them.

"Mu!" it cried, hovering in front of the hurt munna.

"Touko!" Bianca gasped. "It's a musharna, the evolved form of munna. I get it now, the musharna must have created those illusions of Ghetsis to make those grunts run away!"

"What a powerful pokemon," Touko mused, as she watched the reunited musharna and munna together. The munna looked much more happy, and dream mist was spewing out of it at a much faster rate.

"Muuu..." said the munna, floating over towards them now. Bianca's eyes were wide in excitement as musharna followed. Both pokemon hovered in front of them, and musharna's eyes closed in a content expression, its mouth forming what looked like a smile.

"Musharna, mu," it said softly, and floated away, munna behind it. They disappeared behind a fallen down wall, and Touko smiled. "I think musharna was thanking us," she said to Bianca, who was still wide-eyed. "But never mind that. We got what we came for...and a little more."

She walked over to the dream mist the two pokemon had left, which was floating in place. A bitter feeling was inside her as she thought of the Team Plasma grunts - how easily they kicked that munna without any hesitation. It was cruel, it was shocking, it was plain _sick_.

Touko bit her lip, looking at the dream mist. It was the same problem before Team Plasma had showed up. How exactly were they supposed to collect the dream mist?

"Touko? Bianca? How's it going?"

Startled, she and Bianca turned around to spot Fennel running towards them. The woman was holding a vial in her hand, and looked like she'd been running for a while. "I completely forgot to give you two this. It's a special vial that can suck in dream mist."

Fennel froze, as her gaze swept over the situation. There were scuff marks on the ground (probably from their pokemon battles), a few patches of the dirt that were wet (oshawott's water guns), and a few small traces of dried blood on the ground. Moreover, Bianca's oshawott and her snivy were looking exhausted from their battles. The woman asked slowly, "What happened?"

"Oh, Fennel...Team Plasma...munna..." Bianca trailed off, shaking her head. "I can't..."

"Let me explain," Touko cut in, flashing her friend a sympathetic look. What they had seen was a terrifying example of pokemon cruelty - she didn't blame Bianca for being shocked by it.

The next few minutes were occupied by Touko's voice, as she explained exactly what had happened. From first arriving at the dreamyard to the grunts running away, Fennel's eyes were narrowed thoughtfully.

"I see," the woman said, as Touko finished her story. "I do agree with Bianca - it does seem that musharna was the one who created the illusions of Ghetsis. However, the nerve of Team Plasma..."

She broke off suddenly, her face lighting up as she spotted the dream mist next to Touko. "Oh, but you succeeded!"

Fennel rushed towards them, and Touko stepped aside, giving her space. She watched curiously as the woman pressed a button on the vial. The dream mist began floating into the vial, until none remained. Fennel straightened up with a bright smile.

"You girls have been so helpful," she told them, making Bianca perk up. "This dream mist will help with my research on trainers like you. Please come to my house after you're done - I have a little something to give both of you!"

With a wave, she was quick to leave.

"You go on, Touko!" Bianca chirped up, as they watched Fennel's figure disappear. "I think I'll stay here for a while. For training, but I also want to catch a munna myself! They're so cute!" she added, and Touko chuckled at her friend's excitement.

"See ya, then," she responded, picking up Jade's pokeball, and returning her snivy. "Good luck finding a munna!"

Bianca waved her off, and soon the blonde had ran off deeper into the ruins. Touko turned and started to make her way out. She was exhausted from the recent events, and her face kept heating up with anger every time she thought of the Team Plasma grunts.

_Never mind them now,_ she thought quickly, her fists still clenched from the memory. _I've got someone to visit, and another route to explore._

Still, she couldn't shake the image of the munna in pain out of her head.

* * *

"Touko! Good to see you again," Fennel greeted her, quite cheerfully. The woman was sitting down at her desk, while watching the vial of dream mist as it sat connected to several wires and complicated looking machines. Touko didn't bother asking what the purpose was, and instead smiled politely in return.

"I have a new invention I want to test out," Fennel continued, reaching into her desk. The brunette nodded, listening carefully. Fennel pulled out a square-shaped device with one screen, and handed it to her. "This is a C-Gear."

Touko studied the device in her hands. It looked relatively simple, painted with a red pokeball pattern. The screen was shiny, and the device looked quite new. It wasn't much bigger than her hand.

"The C-Gear allows you to connect with other trainers around the region who have their own C-Gears," the woman told her. "You can conduct your own surveys, and release them to the public for other trainers to find and answer. You can also text them, in a way, and add contacts."

"Kind of like an XTransceiver," Touko mused, as she turned the device around in her hands.

"Right," Fennel answered, smiling. "But you can't call anyone. The C-Gear is more focused on surveys and things."

Touko slipped the C-Gear into her bag, and stood up. "Thank you, Fennel. Good luck on your research."

"Thank you too," the woman answered, standing up as well. She adjusted her glasses, and said, "I assume you're off to Nacrene City?"

The brunette gave her a sheepish grin. "I think. That's the next city, right?"

"Right. Just walk west, and after a while you'll see a garden. Beyond that is Route 3, which will take you to Nacrene City," Fennel said, smiling. "Best of luck on your journey, Touko. I think you'll go far."

Touko laughed lightly, a little embarrassed by her praise. "Thanks again, Fennel. Well, I'm off."

She waved, and was quick to leave, since she had to stop at the pokemon center. After that, she'd be off to Route 3.

Ten minutes later, Touko was walking west towards the garden, a new spring in her step. She'd rested up, and had eaten a few snacks from a vending machine. A pack of Goldeens was in her hand (small and and cheesy tasting crackers, shaped of goldeen), and she'd stocked up on other supplies for her journey to Nacrene City. She'd bought a pack of Miltank Munchies (bite-sized pieces of milk chocolate, with a delicious creamy filling), a pack of assorted gummies, several granola bars, a bottle of lemonade, a bottle of berry juice, a few sandwiches, a few pokeballs, some potions, and she'd filled up her own water bottle as well.

In other words, she was prepared.

After walking for a good twenty to thirty minutes, the garden finally came into view. Touko suddenly stopped, an idea coming to her. She should call Hilbert! They hadn't talked since the first day they had reached Striaton City. Quickly she dialled him on her XTransceiver, and crossed her fingers, hoping he'd pick up.

Hilbert's face appeared on the screen, and he broke into a grin. "Touko! I was wondering when you'd call me!"

She grinned sheepishly. "Really? There's been a lot of stuff going on...anyways, where are you?"

"In Nacrene City, checking out their museum," he answered. "Nothing fancy. How about you?"

"I'm heading to Route 3 - _Hilbert, I got my gym badge! _Right this morning!"

Her voice rose in excitement, and the boy on the screen chuckled. "Congratulations, Touko. But I expected nothing less of you. In fact, I was expecting you to get it earlier than you did...kidding," he quipped, as Touko started to scowl at him. "How did you defeat Chili's pansear, if I may ask?"

"A girl in the dreamyard gave me a milotic," she said immediately, her face breaking into a smile at the memory. "It was really kind of her."

"What? Really?" Hilbert exclaimed, his eyes wide. "You were super lucky! I found Jeff in Pinwheel Forest, which was way after the Striaton gym. I had to search on Route 3 _forever _until I found Uma, who I used to fight Cress's panpour."

Touko gave him a smug smirk. "Haha."

He pouted at her childishly. "Whatever. Anyways, you're headed to Nacrene City, right? Do you know anything about Cheren and Bianca? I was hoping we could meet up in Nacrene..."

She shook her head. "No idea. I heard from Bianca that Cheren was challenging the gym this morning, but I don't think she's done it yet."

Hilbert sighed. "Oh well. We'll see how things are. Anyways, have fun on Route 3! See ya later!"

And he hung up. Touko turned off her XTransceiver, and started to wander towards the garden. Maybe she should spend a little while more in the city, especially if Bianca hadn't yet gotten her badge. Perhaps one more day wouldn't hurt...

_No_, Touko thought immediately. She was impatient to move on, and her pokemon surely were too. Maybe she could come back to explore Striaton City a bit more, once she'd become the champion -

Wait. Becoming the champion? That had never been her goal, more Cheren's. Touko shook her head. _Now I'm just confusing myself_. She decided a rest in the garden would do her good.

The garden was peaceful and cozy feeling. A bridge led to it, and ponds of water surrounded the garden. The bushes were shaped like pokemon, and there were several benches for people to sit on. She plopped herself down on one of them, and let her pokemon out. Calypso immediately headed to the water, and began splashing around with the wild water pokemon. With some reluctance, Jade followed. Touko watched them, smiling.

She dug around in her bag and pulled the half-finished pack of Goldeens from earlier. While she watched her pokemon play, she popped several into her mouth, enjoying the cheesy flavour on her tastebuds._ I gotta be careful, or I'll eat everything before I've even started travelling Route 3, _she thought to herself, laughing.

Soon the last cracker in the pack had disappeared into her mouth, and Touko stood up. "Jade, Calypso, it's time to go!" she called, taking out both her pokemons' pokeballs. They were each sucked into their respective pokeballs, and Touko returned them to her bag.

The exit to the garden was a long, wooden, archway-like gate, with grape vines climbing up on it. Touko plucked a grape off and popped it into her mouth, grinning. They were perfectly ripe and sweet.

Further along the path were two buildings on a hill. One of them was smaller, and looked more like a house. A lone old man stood outside. The other was significantly bigger, and had a bright red roof and a playground beside it. Several little kids were running around, while a few older girls stood around, wearing aprons and sometimes running after the children.

They weren't the only people there. Talking to some of the children was a boy with black hair and glasses, wearing a blue jacket and holding a stack of books in his arms.

"Cheren!" Touko cried in delight, breaking into a run. Her friend turned around, eyes widening as he spotted her. The children around him fanned out, all turning to face her with curious eyes.

"Is that girl your girlfwiend?" one of them asked, in an adorably curious voice. An uncomfortable look made its way onto Cheren's face, but Touko laughed.

"No way," she responded, giving him a cheeky grin. "He's got his eye on someone else, kids. If you ever see a girl with blond hair and a green beret named Bi- "

"Touko!" Cheren snapped, his face flushing. The brunette only smiled in return. The children were watching their exchange with wide eyes.

"So what were you doing here, Cheren?" she continued cheerfully. "On your way to Nacrene City?"

"Yes - "

"Nacrene City is really, _really_ big!" one of the children interrupted, a little girl with blond pigtails. She grinned widely. "My mommy took me there once!"

"How nice!" Touko said immediately, directing her attention to the children. She felt a bit jealous that at the age of thirteen, she hadn't been anywhere other than Nuvema Town in her life. But it wasn't the little girl's fault at all.

"Boo!" a voice suddenly exclaimed, and the face of a pokemon appeared in front of Touko. She jumped, startled.

"Holy shi - "

Cheren shot her a glare.

" - shiitake mushrooms," she finished quickly, laughing awkwardly. _Close save there, Touko, _she thought to herself. Shiitake mushrooms were mushrooms found in the dense forests of any region, and her mother made the best soup with them. Luckily she'd thought of them before she'd ruined the children's innocence.

Cheren cleared his throat. "It's just a shuppet, Touko."

"Right, just a shuppet," she echoed, laughing again. The truth was, she wasn't even afraid of ghost-type pokemon. She actually really liked them. But the sudden appearance of two, glowing blue eyes in her face (along with a boo) was enough to scare her.

"You did it, Dennis!" one of the girls cheered. The shuppet looked pleased, and the boy standing beside it grinned. "Did I scare you?" he asked, eyes shining in triumph.

Touko smiled, and patted him on the back. "You sure did."

"Shuppet's always wanted to scare someone," the boy went on, giving his pokemon a grin. "She wants to be in a haunted house someday!"

"What are shiitake mushrooms?" a little boy asked just then, joined in by the other children. Cheren looked at Touko, rolled his eyes, and said, "Shiitake mushrooms are mushrooms that are found growing in several regions. They're commonly used to make soup."

"I love soup!" said a little girl, and the other children murmured agreement.

"Children! It's time for a snack!" a voice called, and all the children began to run towards the building. A young woman with light brown hair in a bun was standing in front of them, wearing an apron and jeans. She gave each of the children a pat as they entered the building, and when the last had entered, walked over to Cheren and Touko.

"It was nice of you to entertain them," she said, giving them a smile. "They can be hard to keep under control at times. My name is Laura, and I'm a nursery aide here at this daycare. And you two are?"

Cheren introduced them both, and said, "They're very nice children. They liked to listen to my talk about books."

Touko laughed at that, causing the black-haired boy to shoot her a glare. Laura gave them an amused smile. "Rebecca especially, I'm guessing. She loves to read, even if she doesn't always understand what she's reading. Red-haired girl, frizzy hair?"

They chatted for a while, and Laura talked a bit about what it was like working at a daycare. From what Touko understood, it sounded like a lot of work. Preparing snacks, lunches, activities, and keeping loads of young children under control. Being a nursery aide was _not_ one of her dream jobs.

"But it's worth it, being around such lovely people," Laura added. She gave them both a smile. "Would you two like to join us for our afternoon snack? I'm sure the kids would appreciate your company. If you'd like to, that is."

"Sure, why not?" Cheren shrugged. Touko agreed, with much more enthusiasm. Though she wasn't the best with children, she liked them. Maybe it was because they reminded her of herself. (Since she was still a five year-old at heart. Wasn't everyone?)

The inside of the daycare was quite big. It was one room, but there was a washroom, and Touko spotted a large table in the centre of the room. Several other nursery aides sat around, and of course the children. They seemed to be eating crackers and cheese, as well as fruits and vegetables with dip.

"Would anyone like more juice?" a nursery aide asked, standing up. Several children chorused, "Me!"

Laura led them to the table, where she directed them to seats. Then the woman clapped her hands loudly and said, "Hush now, hush now, like a lillipup. Quiet down and don't you talk, it's time to listen up."

It was obvious this was the daycare's way of getting the children to pay attention, as all the children immediately turned to Laura and stopped talking.

"Now children, we have two guests," the woman began. "This is Cheren" - she nodded at Cheren - "and this is Touko." Touko waved, and Laura continued. "They are both pokemon trainers on a journey, and we're glad to have them here. You can ask them questions, but please don't overwhelm them."

She sat down, and the children started to talk, several of them to Touko and several of them to Cheren. What was her starter pokemon? (Snivy, she answered, calling Jade out of her pokeball to show them.) How many badges did she have? (One, she answered, to their disappointment.) How old was she? (Thirteen, which made them say that she was very old.)

Then Touko was given her snack, and the children quieted down. Crackers and cheese, and vegetables or fruit of her choice. She was strongly reminded of being a kindergartener at Nuvema Town's daycare, eating crackers and cheese. She remembered how much she'd complained about the snack, saying it was too healthy.

She smiled to herself. Eating crackers and cheese again - just like the five year-old she was inside.

* * *

**AN**: So last chapter was way over my usual word count. This one's back to normal, haha. I changed up the dreamyard events a bit, having Bianca fight the other grunt. In game, you fight both the grunts, one after the other. So basically, while you fight one of the grunts, the other one just waits there for you to finish, and so does Bianca. Then she watches you fight the second grunt. I feel like Bianca wouldn't be that incompetent, and that the other grunt would rather play dirty and have a two-on-one battle instead of waiting.

Other than that, I have nothing much to say. Reviews are welcome, please let me know what you think of this story! Thanks for for reading, and every favourite and follow is appreciated as well. See ya! :)


	7. Chapter 6: Plasma Shenanigans

"Alright purrloin, ready?"

Cheren threw a pokeball, a purrloin leaping out. It let out a loud meow, and turned to face Touko's milotic.

"We can't lose this, purrloin," Cheren said determinedly, and Touko met his gaze with a smirk. The brunette was confident in her abilities, having both her snivy and milotic battle-ready. Calypso had just taken down Cheren's tepig, and his purrloin was next on the list.

"Calypso, start out with a nice water pulse!" she commanded, crossing her fingers. She hoped it would cause confusion, which would turn the battle greatly to her favour.

"Dodge!" Cheren shouted, and to her dismay, his purrloin managed to leap out of the way of her milotic's water pulse. It was much more agile than it had been for their last battle, evidently having trained up. "Now use scratch!"

"Intercept with water pulse!" Touko responded immediately. Calypso projected a large bubble at the purrloin, and this time its aim was true. The bubble surrounded the feline pokemon for a few seconds, then popped. Purrloin wavered on the spot, but stayed on its paws.

_It's not confused_, Touko realized, gritting her teeth. _Oh well. Calypso's perfectly capable of taking it down._

"Water pulse, again!"

"Dodge, and use fury swipes!"

The water pulse hit, and this time evidently stunned Cheren's purrloin. It stumbled about, not looking confused, but stunned from the impact.

Taking advantage of its weakness, Touko commanded Calypso to attack using wrap. It was enough to finish the feline pokemon off, and Cheren's teeth were gritted as he recalled his pokemon to its pokeball. Touko returned Calypso to her own pokeball, feeling rather apprehensive. She knew how much Cheren cared about being the strongest, and here she was beating him every time they fought.

"I still can't win to you," was all he said, as he straightened up to face her. She took a peek at his face - he was obviously upset, but no anger showed. "Even though we both have the Trio Badge, our strengths aren't equal."

"I was lucky I had Calypso to take down your tepig," Touko told him, quickly. "Without Calypso, things probably would've turned out differently."

"But it doesn't matter what could've turned out differently, it's what it turned out that matters," Cheren answered. The black-haired boy looked frustrated, as he bit his lip. "How am I supposed to become the champion if I can't beat you?"

She hesitated.

"My goal isn't even to become the champion," she said. A while back she could've said that with certainty, but now she wasn't so sure. The thought had crossed her mind several more times, no matter how often she reminded herself that it was_ Cheren_, Cheren's goal, not hers.

"Out of the way!" a voice suddenly shouted. Touko and Cheren spun around to see two Team Plasma grunts running their way. Unfortunately, she was slow at reacting, and so was Cheren, so the two grunts ran past them before either of them reacted.

"T-team Plasma!" she spluttered, her face turning red. "They're back!"

She turned to run after them, but Cheren grabbed her arm. "Wait. Bianca's coming!"

Sure enough, their blonde friend was running their way, holding the hand of a little girl who ran beside her. As they got closer, Touko noticed that the girl's face was tear-streaked, and that she was sniffling. Bianca seemed to be comforting her.

"Cheren! Touko!" Bianca cried in relief.

"Bianca, what are you doing here?" Cheren asked in surprise. Touko wanted to wrench her way out of his grip to go after the grunts - surely they were up to no good!

"Miss...my pokemon," the little girl sniffled, and Bianca immediately looked over with a comforting smile. "We'll get it back, I promise," she told her.

"They stole her pokemon, didn't they?" Touko asked, more sharply than she intended to sound. Bianca's gaze hardened, and the blonde nodded in return. That made Cheren's face harden as well.

"Touko, we've got no time to waste," he said, clenching his fists. "I'm going after them - Bianca, you stay back and watch over the girl."

He turned and started running after the grunts. Touko was quick to follow, after reassuring the girl that they would get her pokemon back and give the grunts a good beating. The last part made Bianca grimace, but the brunette was too furious to care.

Cheren wasn't too far ahead, and she caught up quickly. In the distance, she could see something that looked like the opening of a cave. "They went that way?"

"Looks like it," said Cheren, as they continued to jog. He nodded at the footprints in the ground. "It'd also be an ideal place to hide. Dark, easy to get lost in."

"Great," Touko muttered. "You're sure they're not hiding in the woods?" They were surrounded by trees, with loads of tall grass growing among them. In her opinion, it'd also be easy to make an escape into the woods.

The black-haired boy shook his head. "I don't think so. If there's something I learned from my books, it's that people who want to escape tend to pick places like..."

He talked on as they jogged, but she tuned out most of his words. "...places with lots of twists and turns," he was finishing, as they stopped in front of the cave. "They're most definitely in here."

Touko stepped forward immediately, but Cheren grabbed her arm again. She turned to face him with a frustrated frown, but he remained calm and collected.

"Are your pokemon healed?" he asked simply. "We can't go running into a cave without our pokemon with full health. If we find the grunts, we'll probably have to fight them."

He had a point. She shook her head, pulling out her pokeballs. "You're right."

"Here," he said, handing her a handful of berries. "Oran berries."

They were a shade of bright blue, and round. She quickly muttered a thanks, before calling Jade and Calypso out of their pokeballs. She handed one to each of them, and both her pokemon looked much more alert after eating them. The rest of the berries she stored in her bag, before recalling Calypso to her pokeball. The milotic would have a hard time keeping up, but Jade could sit on her shoulder - and she wanted at least one of her pokemon to keep them company.

"Ready?" Cheren asked, and Touko nodded.

They stepped into the cave, and it felt as though they were immediately swallowed in darkness. The light of the outside faded away once they'd taken a few steps in, and the temperature had cooled significantly. Touko shivered, and reminded herself that she wasn't alone. Luckily, Cheren had a flashlight on him, and they didn't have to go too far.

"Look," she hissed to Cheren, elbowing him as they walked. She could spot two figures illuminated in the distance by his flashlight. There was another figure on the ground, which she swore looked like a pokemon.

"Stay quiet," Cheren responded, clicking off his flashlight. "We don't want them to know we're coming."

It took a while for her eyes to adjust to the light, and she was grateful when they did. Touko could still see the faint outline of the figures - very faint, but there. She heard their voices too - confirming they were Team Plasma.

"Just a measly purrloin?" one of them was saying (a female, by the sound of her voice), sounding disappointed. "What a letdown."

Cheren pulled Touko behind a ledge, and they crouched down to listen. The other grunt, a male, said, "I know, right? I was hoping it'd be a stronger pokemon, that we could actually put to use. Let's test this purrloin out and see if it's strong enough - otherwise it's getting dumped."

"Agreed," the female grunt responded, and Touko clenched her teeth. She didn't like the way the grunt had said _dumped_. The poor pokemon - they had to rescue it!

"Stop!" Cheren shouted suddenly, making her jump. He stood up from their hiding spot, clicked his flashlight on, and turned to shine it at the grunts. "Return that pokemon. _Now_."

Touko stood up too, and found that her assumptions had been correct - a male grunt and a female grunt stood side-by-side, bent over a purrloin. At the sound of Cheren's voice, and the beam of his flashlight, they both spun around, eyes narrowed.

"Well what do we have here?" the female grunt asked, mockingly. "Two intruders."

"Two pesky intruders," the male grunt added.

"We know you stole that pokemon," Touko said fiercely, putting her hands on her hips. "Give it back."

Jade jumped down from her shoulder, and faced the grunts with narrowed eyes. "Vy, snivy!" the snivy said, with a tone to match her trainer's.

The female grunt sneered. "What makes you think we'll do that? That little girl can't use a pokemon to its full potential. Wouldn't that make the purrloin sad, _honey?_"

Now Touko reached into her bag, and pulled out Calypso's pokeball. Her fists were clenched in anger, and the grunt's mocking use of the word honey completely infuriated her. She tossed it in the air, and her milotic came out, landing on the ground. The grunts hesitated slightly, as Calypso swung her head around to give them an intimidating look.

"Try me," Touko told them, fixing a serious look on her face.

Beside her, Cheren seemed to get her motive. The boy pulled out two pokeballs, and his own two pokemon came out - purrloin and tepig. All had fierce expressions on their faces, and Cheren stepped forward.

"You'll have to get through us if you want to escape," he said simply. The female grunt snorted, and gave them an amused look.

"Fine, we'll play it your way," she said, pulling out her own pokeball. "I'll take care of the boy, and you take care of the girl. Patrat, out!"

Cheren called his tepig forward, and within a few seconds both pokemon were fiercely locked in battle, their trainers shouting commands. The male grunt sent forward the stolen purrloin, and Touko hesitated. She didn't want to fight the innocent pokemon, but she had to if they wanted to get it back.

"Jade, it's your turn - vine whip, go!" she commanded, returning Calypso to her pokeball. Heat suddenly seared near her legs, making her jump, and Cheren shouted, "Sorry, Touko!"

_It must've been tepig's ember_, she thought quickly. She turned her attention back to her battle, and saw that purrloin had dodged Jade's vine whip, to her dismay and partial relief.

"Purrloin, scratch!" the grunt shouted.

"Jade, dodge!" Touko called, but she needn't have worried. Purrloin merely stood there, almost like it was refusing to move. Jade looked surprised, cocking her head. The same could be said for her trainer, who was frowning. The brunette was thinking, hard. _Maybe the purrloin doesn't want to fight for its kidnappers!_

"Damn this stupid pokemon!" the grunt cursed. "Do something, purrloin! Scratch!"

Again, the feline pokemon remained stubbornly still.

"You think your trainer's better than us? She won't be able to use you to your full potential, so you're better off with us," the grunt spat. "Be grateful. We're doing you a favour by rescuing you from your trainer. Now use scratch!"

This time, purrloin moved. Touko's cry of "dodge" had barely reached her lips when she realized that the purrloin hadn't made any move towards Jade at all - instead, the pokemon was leaping at the grunt. It scratched his calves, before landing lightly on its paws again.

The grunt swore very loudly, and dropped to his knees to clutch at his legs. The scratch had ripped his pants, and obviously punctured skin. His swearing matched that of a sailor's, as he swore over and over again.

The purrloin took the time to run over to Touko, and the brunette trainer quickly stood in front of it, blocking it from the grunt.

"You have very colourful language," was all she told him, as he stood up, groaning.

"No way - you lost to that loser?" came the voice of the female grunt. Touko looked over, to see Cheren straightening up with a grim look on his face, and the grunt looking furious. Cheren's tepig was still standing, so she assumed the grunt had lost.

"We should just get out of here," the male grunt responded, face twisted in pain. "The damn pokemon scratched me. I don't give a hell about what happens to it. Let it go back to its trainer, it's a weakling anyways."

"Not so fast," Touko interrupted, stepping forward. She glared at both grunts. "We're not just going to let you leave."

"You still want to fight, huh?" the female grunt taunted. She turned to the male grunt. "Pass over your patrat, and I'll be happy to battle for you."

"Wait a second!" a voice shouted, and the four turned to see two more grunts running towards them. Touko's heart sank, and she felt the purrloin behind her tremble against her legs. Now they would have to fight their way through some more idiots. She turned to look at Cheren, shooting him a look. They could just run right there, now that they got the purrloin back. Was it worth it to stay and fight the other two grunts?

"Touko, let's get out of here," Cheren whispered to her, grabbing her arm. They had just started to run, when one of the newly-arrived grunts shouted, "Stop right there! We challenge you two to a battle! If we win, we get to escape with the purrloin. If you win, we'll gladly go with you and turn ourselves in."

A gamble, then. She shot another glance at Cheren. The black-haired boy looked like he was in deep thought.

"Fine," he agreed, straightening up. "It's a deal."

"Are you sure?" the female grunt asked, turning to the two new grunts. "They're really strong - "

One of the new grunts waved her away. "And we're stronger than you two buttheads, if you haven't noticed. There's no way we'll lose."

His confidence frightened Touko. Of course, maybe it could be fake bravado, or overconfidence, but who knew what the rank of these new grunts was? They could be the strongest grunts in all of Team Plasma, for all they knew. _Yikes_. That was a terrifying thought.

"Watchog, out!" both grunts shouted at the same time, and threw their pokeballs. Two pokemon Touko had never seen before came out, landing on two feet. They resembled patrat, especially with their eyes and body shape. They were coloured reddish-brown, with yellow stripes on their bodies.

"The evolved form of patrat," Cheren whispered, from beside her. "This'll be a tougher fight. Ready?"

Touko met Jade's eyes; the snivy was still standing on the ground determinedly, eyes narrowed at the grunts. A silent understanding passed from pokemon to trainer, and Touko nodded. "Ready."

"Watchog, crunch!" The grunts shouted in unison, and both watchog reacted. They immediately began rushing towards Jade and Cheren's tepig, with amazing agility. Quickly, Touko and Cheren both shouted, "Dodge!"

But the watchog were just too fast, and both Jade and tepig were crushed under the watchogs' teeth, and then were thrown into the cave wall from the watchog. Both pokemon got back to their feet, breathing heavily. This wasn't looking so good.

To Touko's relief, the next crunch from both of them missed, and Jade managed to land a few vine whips, while Cheren's tepig hit them with a couple of embers. Then the next crunch was enough to cause tepig to faint, and snivy to collapse on the ground - still conscious, but barely hanging on.

"Still want to fight?" one of the grunts taunted, seeing Touko's frustrated expression. "We'll be kind and let you off, if you want to give up."

"Definitely not," she growled, and returned Jade to her pokeball. She pulled out Calypso's, and Cheren pulled out his purrloin's.

The battle only lasted a few more minutes, with confusion taking toll on the watchog from Calypso's water pulses. Both grunts returned their pokemon, with stunned looks on their faces.

"You idiots!" snapped the female grunt. "Now we'll have to turn ourselves in! If we get back to Ghetsis, I'll be reporting this to him - let him demote you!"

Touko stepped forward, glaring at them. "Well, we won, you lost. Keep your deal and come with us."

One of the grunts smiled, a taunting smile. "You really thought we'd do that? Plasma, out!" he shouted, and all of them immediately started running away, deeper into the cave.

"Touko, just let them go," Cheren hissed, seeing her frustrated face. She knew he was right - she hadn't exactly been counting on them to keep their deal, either. There was no point trying to go after them, it was just too dark and easy to get lost in this cave.

The purrloin whimpering behind her brought her back to her senses. They had to get out of here, and return the pokemon to the girl. Bianca was probably worried sick, and Touko didn't want her friend to panic.

She picked up the purrloin's pokeball, and returned Calypso to her own pokeball as well as the purrloin, before turning to Cheren with a nod. "Let's go."

* * *

"Touko! Cheren! Oh, we were so worried!"

Bianca's worried cry greeted the two trainers as they ran back towards her. The blonde captured both of them in a tight hug, and said, "We thought the grunts had done something to you!"

Touko patted her reassuringly on her back, before breaking out of her grip. She held out the purrloin's pokeball to the little girl, who was watching with anxious eyes.

"Oh, thank you so much, miss!" the little girl exclaimed, her frown breaking into a wide smile. She clutched purrloin's pokeball like it was a precious jewel. "I'll never let go of it again, I promise!"

Cheren glanced at the sky, before clearing his throat. The sun had already set in the time they were in the cave, and night was approaching. "I should get going," the boy said, turning around. "There's not much time left for today."

He was right. But right now Touko was too tired to do anything but sleep, so she decided to set up camp and spend some time relaxing until she fell asleep. Giving a quick hug to the little girl, and a goodbye to Cheren and Bianca, she left, travelling further along the route.

The path went down, surrounded by white fences and tall grass surrounded by woods. She ventured into the tall grass, and headed deep into the woods. Finally she found what she was looking for - a small, cozy clearing.

Touko struggled for a bit with her tent, finally managing to pitch it up. By then she'd already opened up a package of pokemon food for her pokemon, and Calypso and Jade sat around eating it, while she ate a sandwich of her own. She also opened the package of Miltank Munchies, and although sweets weren't healthy for pokemon, couldn't resist handing a few to hers. The rest she devoured slowly.

The next few hours were spent relaxing, as Calypso and Jade played around. Touko sat outside her tent, reading a fantasy novel she'd recently fallen in love with - named _Perish Song_, the novel told the story of a villain who terrorized a kingdom using a powerful meloetta who could immediately kill people and pokemon alike with a single use of perish song. The main character was an orphaned village girl named Elysia, who had only recently been gifted a small swablu.

Her eyelids started to grow heavy as the sky became darker, and a yawn escaped her lips. _One more page_, she kept urging herself. _One more page - maybe I'll find out the truth about Elysia's parents!_

The last Miltank Munchie disappeared into her mouth, and Touko couldn't stop another yawn. She bookmarked her page, and set the book down reluctantly. Calypso and Jade had recently stopped their playing, and both pokemon were snoozing on the ground. A small smile tugged at the corner of her lips, and she crawled into her tent.

Touko yawned, and zipped up the entrance to her tent. She laid down on her sleeping bag, her eyes already closed. It had been a very, very long day. A gym battle, going to the dreamyard, then the encounter with Team Plasma in that cave...

Her mind had drifted off into sleep before she even started thinking about what would happen tomorrow.

* * *

_She was riding a pokemon; a white, feathered dragon. Reshiram, the pokemon of truths. Her hair flew behind her in the wind, as they soared above the skies. It was beautiful, it was peaceful, it was wonderful. The great dragon roared and sped up, taking her by surprise. Her fingers slipped and her legs slipped; she was falling down, down, down..._

"Agh!"

A startled cry escaped Touko's lips as she shot up in her sleeping bag, feeling a water gun to her head. Her hair was wet, and so was her face. She looked up to see Calypso sticking her head into her tent, and Jade beside her. Both pokemon looked amused, especially her snivy.

Touko groaned, but she couldn't help smiling. "Thanks for waking me up, guys."

As she took turned on her XTransceiver, she realized why Calypso had used water gun on her. It was 10:18, and she'd planned to wake up at nine o'clock the latest. _Oh well,_ the brunette thought, as she began squeezing the water out of her hair. _Today'll be a more relaxing day._

The sun was shining brightly through the opening of her tent, so her hair would dry soon by itself. Touko quickly put her hair up into her usual ponytail, and put on her hat. She was already dressed, as she'd slept in her clothes. She pushed her way outside of her tent to join Calypso and Jade, who were playing around.

She sat there for a while, eating one of the sandwiches she'd bought back in Striaton City, and opened up a bottle of lemonade as well, which she took occasional sips of. Jade wandered away, to eventually return with two big berries. The snivy handed one to Calypso, and both pokemon sat down to eat theirs.

It was a very peaceful morning, but Touko didn't want to wait too long. She wanted to make it to Nacrene City today, and maybe even meet up with Hilbert (assuming he was still there). She took down her tent rather quickly, although she probably didn't do it properly. _Whatever_, her brain thought, as she shoved the poles into her bag.

She called Hilbert quickly, and he confirmed that he was still staying in Nacrene City. "I can come onto Route 3 to meet you on your way," he had suggested, to which Touko shook her head. "You could get lost or pass by me and stuff," she had responded. He'd stuck out his tongue at her teasingly, but smiled. "Fine, I'll wait for you."

Now, Touko packed everything she didn't need into her bag, and straightened up. "Calypso, Jade, it's time to go," she told her pokemon, as she pulled out their pokeballs. They were sucked into them with a flash of red light, and she stored their pokeballs in her bag as well. Adjusting her hat on her head, she said to herself, "Let's do this!"

It took her a while to make her way out of the woods, and back into the tall grass. From there she walked a bit longer, until the white fence bordering the grass appeared in the distance. She swung herself over it with ease - she had always been a decently athletic person. Dropping down on the other side, she continued to walk along the dirt path.

The path ahead started to get a bit rocky, and Touko's boots crunched on the ground. A light breeze had picked up, and as she rounded a corner, she gasped in delight. There was a lake spread out before her, surrounded by trees. The water was perfectly still and clear, occasionally rippling in the wind's force. The reflections of the trees in the water were absolutely beautiful, and she mentally berated herself for not bringing a camera.

A wooden bridge led the way over the lake, and Touko ran onto it in excitement of getting a better view. She peered over the railings for a long time, watching as aquatic pokemon occasionally leapt out of the water. She spotted a school of basculin swimming by, under the water.

"Isn't the view beautiful?" a voice said nearby, startling her. Touko jumped, turning to see a girl standing nearby her. She looked around Touko's age, maybe a few years younger, with brown hair in short pigtails and a large pair of glasses. She was wearing a white dress shirt and a pleated black skirt, and had a stack of textbooks under her arm.

"Yeah, it's really nice," Touko agreed. She scanned the girl's outfit, and her textbooks. "You going to school?"

Pokemon school was where you could go, once you turned six. There you would learn the basics of the region, and pokemon facts and trivia. School generally went up to age twelve, as you would be able to apply for your own journey and free starter pokemon when you turned thirteen. Technically you'd be able to leave before thirteen, as long as you had a pokemon and a trainer's licence. If you wanted more learning then you could apply for extra courses. Touko herself had graduated at age twelve.

The girl grimaced. "Yeah. Technically it's a half-day today, as we have exams in the afternoon and they gave us the morning off to study. I thought I'd spend it studying here, enjoying the nice view."

"That's a nice plan," Touko responded, turning her gaze back to the lake. "Good luck on your exams. They're pretty brutal."

"No kidding!" the girl snorted, grinning now. "I'm Gina, by the way. Are you a trainer?"

"Yeah," she said, smiling. "I left on my journey a couple of days ago - and my name's Touko."

"And you've gotten this far?" Gina asked, sounding incredulous. "Wow!"

They chatted for a while longer, and Touko excused herself to leave. They registered each other on their XTransceivers, before exchanging goodbyes. The bridge continued on for a little longer, until it ended onto another dirt path.

She met another trainer further on, a boy named Edgar, who challenged her to a battle. He had a pidove and a roggenrola. The pidove was harder to beat, and Touko called out Calypso to take care of it. The roggenrola was easier - as both Jade and Calypso had a type advantage over it.

"You're the first trainer I've lost to today," Edgar had moaned, as he returned his pokemon and handed her some bills. "Darn it."

Further down the road was some more tall grass. Deciding some wild pokemon battles would help train her pokemon up for the Nacrene Gym, Touko explored for a while. She ran into several lillipup, patrat, and purrloin, until she came across a pokemon she'd never seen before.

"Blitz, blitzle!" the pokemon whinnied, stomping its hooves. It stood on four legs, and was dark gray with white stripes on its body. It had a spiky white mane resembling a lightning bolt, and a black muzzle.

_Never seen this pokemon before_, she thought excitedly, pulling out her pokedex, and scanned the pokemon.

"Blitzle, the electrified pokemon. Blitzle catches electricity and stores it in its mane, which glows when the electricity is discharged," the screen read. Other facts appeared on the screen, and she glanced over them before shoving the device back into her bag.

"It's an electric type, so Calypso is a no-go," she muttered to herself, taking out Jade's pokeball. "But Jade'll be okay."

Touko decided to catch the blitzle. She didn't know if she'd be able to encounter another electric type anytime soon, and blitzle looked like really cool pokemon. It was worth a try.

"Jade, come on out!" she shouted, and tossed her pokeball. Her snivy appeared, landing lightly on her feet. "Sni, snivy!" the green pokemon cried, sounding determined.

"Use vine whip!" Touko commanded. Jade began racing towards the blitzle, leaping into the air, producing vines from her body. But just as she lashed down, the blitzle skidded sideways, easily dodging the attack. Luckily, Jade wasn't caught off guard and managed to land lightly.

"That's one fast pokemon," Touko muttered, and the blitzle began charging at Jade. Its mane started to glow yellow, before sending a mini shockwave around it.

"Dodge, Jade!" she shouted, but the attack was already hitting Jade. Her snivy stayed paralyzed for a few moments, and she desperately thought, _Please don't be paralyzed, please don't be paralyzed..._

To her relief, Jade unfroze after a few moments. Hopefully she wasn't paralyzed, just recovering from the attack. "Vine whip!" Touko commanded, and this time her snivy was able to successfully land the attack. The blitzle stumbled back, whinnying in pain.

For a few moments, both pokemon stood facing each other. Touko was at a dilemma - should she risk attacking it again, or should she throw a pokeball?

Her choice as made for her when the blitzle began charging at Jade again. She quickly dug into her bag and pulled out a pokeball. "Come on!" she growled to herself, as she threw the pokeball. It opened and sucked in the blitzle right before it reached Jade.

It shook once, twice, and then three times, before emitting a ding sound. Touko let out the breath she'd been holding, and ran over to the pokeball that lay on the ground. She picked it up, and grinned.

"Come on out, blitzle!" she said, and pressed the release button. The blitzle came out, looking much more relaxed than before. It eyed Jade a little hesitantly, and Touko laughed.

"We're all friends now," she reassured the pokemon, before taking out her pokedex once again. She held it up in front of the blitzle, and the same information appeared. But this time the bottom screen told her what she wanted.

Her new blitzle was a male, had the ability lightningrod, and the moves quick attack, tail whip, charge, and shockwave. _Now for a name,_ Touko thought, as she put her pokedex back in her bag. Her blitzle stood with its head cocked, as if waiting for her decision.

_I need something that makes sense...something that fits it..._

"Tempest," she decided, grinning. "That's your new nickname, okay?"

Blitzle - now Tempest - whinnied in what sounded like happiness. With a wide grin, Touko went over and stroked her blitzle. After a quick petting session with all of her pokemon, she returned them to their pokeballs, ready to continue on her journey.

_Hopefully Hilbert's still waiting for me, _she thought, picking up her pace_. I really want to show him my pokemon!_

Soon she could see the faint outlines of buildings in the background, surrounded by trees. She broke into a run, seeing the buildings grow closer. The dirt path turned into cement, and the road turned into a street surrounded by warehouses. Touko walked slowly, open-mouthed as she took it all in. She was so absorbed in her surroundings that she didn't notice where she was going - and crashed into someone.

"Sorry - " she started to apologize, but stopped when she realized who it was.

Hilbert grinned at her, his hair sticking messily out of his hat. "Hey, Touko. Glad you made it at last." She grinned back, and threw her arms around him in a hug.

"I'm glad, too! Hilbert, I have _so_ many things to tell you about!"

* * *

**AN**: More problems with Team Plasma! Will Touko ever get a break? Next chapter might contain the gym battle, but I'm not too sure yet. If not, it'll definitely be the first thing next next chapter!

So Touko got her third pokemon! I did my playthrough of White with a zebstrika, and it was a really good pokemon in my experience. But I didn't chose snivy, I chose tepig, aha. SeleneHime, thanks for the suggestion - I promise you next chapter will have many more detailed scenes, elaborating on Nacrene City's features. Thank you to Alphinia too for reviewing and always supporting me with my stories! Anyways, that's all for this chapter - see ya! Reviews are always appreciated ~ :)


	8. Chapter 7: Being Busy is Overrated

"...and this is Tempest!" Touko finished, waving her arms dramatically at her new blitzle while ginning widely. "I just caught him before entering Nacrene City, like, thirty minutes ago?" Tempest whinnied, and stomped a hoof on the ground.

Hilbert raised an eyebrow at her teasingly, while reaching forward to stroke the blitzle. "You've already got three pokemon?"

She scowled back, but couldn't help a smile. "Why wouldn't I?"

The two of them were sitting on a bench in Nacrene City, talking. Touko had told Hilbert all about her gym battle, training in the dreamyard, the encounter with Team Plasma in the dreamyard, and the other encounter later on in the cave. (Apparently it was called "Wellspring Cave", according to Hilbert.) Now she was showing him her pokemon.

"Sounds like you went through a lot," the brunet boy commented. "Two run-ins with Team Plasma, all in the same day!"

This brought another scowl to Touko's face.

"I seriously don't get who they are," she said, crossing her arms. "I mean, with all this talk of liberating pokemon or whatever, but all they do is steal pokemon from trainers and harass wild pokemon! They have to be stopped."

Hilbert nodded agreement. "Like I mentioned before, I _did_ run into them a few times while I was travelling. But they were never as active as they are now...that makes me wonder. Also, when did their group originally 'form'?"

She bit her lip. "No idea."

"Look, there's no point worrying over them now," the brunet boy said, standing up. He grabbed her arm, and grinned. "Why don't you relax for a couple of days? Being busy is seriously overrated. Let's go to the café - since it's Wednesday, you can get a free soda pop! Every Wednesday - it's their special!"

"Soda pop?" Touko perked up, a slow smile making its way onto her face. She loved soda, and unluckily the vending machine back in Striaton City had been out of soda. When Hilbert nodded to confirm it, that was all she needed. Whipping out Tempest's pokeball, she returned him before eagerly switching her grip to Hilbert's other hand, dragging him away. She was in such a hurry that she forgot the fact that -

"Do you even know where the café is?" asked Hilbert from behind her. He sounded like he was laughing.

"No idea," she told him, still walking and grinning. "Am I going the right way?"

"It's in the northwest part of the city," he said, as she pulled him down a random street surrounded by warehouses. "So no. You're going the exact opposite direction."

Touko let go of his hand. "Whatever," she said, grinning cockily. "Race you, then!"

Before he could respond, she was turning around, heading back up to street, running northwest. (Or, at least, what she thought was the northwest direction.) She could hear Hilbert's footsteps behind her, and sped up. But she had to stop when she reached an intersection; she could keep going straight, or head up. In the time that it took her to hesitate, Hilbert was speeding past her, going onto the road going up.

"How're you supposed to race to someplace you don't even know?" he shouted back at her teasingly, and Touko stuck her tongue out at him in retaliation as she quickly changed track to follow him.

She was nearing him by the time they turned onto another street, but the café was already in view. There was a large patio connected to the café building, with chairs, tables, and umbrellas - typical patio furniture. Pairs and trios of people sat around them, chatting and eating. The smell of pastries reached her nose, and her brain started to drift off into fantasies of sweets and buns...

"Touko, you're drooling!" Hilbert laughed, running over to her. "Hungry?"

She jumped, but quickly composed herself. "Yup. You bet!"

"Well, what are we waiting for? Come on," he said, and it was his turn to pull her.

There were several large flowerpots in front of the café, filled with vividly coloured blossoms. They smelled good, and she leaned in for a quick sniff before she was dragged into the building.

The smell of pastries and food was even more overwhelming inside, but to Touko's dismay, there was a huge line. A waitress stood at the door, welcoming people in, handing out free sodas (Touko took hers with a big grin, and thanked the waitress heartily), and directing some to the seats indoors. A door at the back of the building connected it to the patio.

"Into line, quick!" Touko yelped, leading Hilbert quickly. They found a spot behind a lady holding a little boy by the hand.

"I want a cheese bun," the boy was whining. His mother sighed, and said, "Fine, we'll get you a cheese bun, okay?"

Touko estimated ten minutes had passed before the little boy walked away with a cheese bun in hand, his mother following him, and it was finally their turn to order. She scanned the menu that hung on the wall, thinking.

"I'll have a sandwich, please," said Hilbert from beside her. "Number five."

The cashier nodded. "That's all? That'll be..."

Hilbert exchanged his money, pulling out a few coins and bills, and the cashier typed something into his machine. He directed Hilbert to the left to wait, and turned to look at Touko.

"Can I have a Tropical Pineapple Cupcake - number twenty three?" she asked. The picture of the cupcake looked delicious - a large cupcake topped with what looked like vanilla frosting, coconut flakes, and a big slice of pineapple. According to the description, the cupcake was: "_Deliciously moist, with a topping of vanilla buttercream frosting, sweetened coconut flakes, and a slice of pineapple on the top! The perfect thing to satisfy your sweet tooth!_"

In short, she was sold. There was nothing that would stop her from eating that cupcake.

She also ordered a sandwich and a small ice cream sundae before paying the cashier. _Good thing I get paid from winning battles, or I'd be broke by now!_ She was directed to wait where Hilbert was.

A minute later, Hilbert's sandwich came, and he said, "I'll grab us a seat on the patio. Meet me up there when you get your food."

Touko nodded in return, and leaned against the counter while she waited. Finally her food came, and she grabbed it before setting out the back of the building, heading up the stairs that led to the patio. She found Hilbert sitting at a table, sipping on his soda, while another waitress walked around.

She shielded her eyes from the sun, and set down her food at his table. Now he was munching on his sandwich, and lazily waved when she approached. "Hullo," he said, his mouth full.

Touko grinned back, before grabbing her own sandwich. "I'm starving!" she proclaimed.

There was a moment of silence in which both brunette trainers were digging into their food. Touko started on her cupcake, and _boy_ was the menu right. The cupcake tasted like heaven.

"You should've gotten one of these," she told Hilbert, once she'd finished the cupcake. "_Amazing_. I never realized what great food I'd been missing out on."

He smirked at her. "I've already had one, Touko. I had one on the first day I got here - did you see the other cupcakes they have? Mango lime, ginger, coconut, green apple...if you find this stuff good, then wait till you get to Castelia City - you haven't lived if you haven't had a casteliacone."

Touko's mouth started to water, and she scowled at him. "Stop it."

"Oh, you two make such a cute couple!" commented a voice from behind them; it was the waitress, who had stopped by their table. She had her brown hair in a bun, and her green eyes were twinkling. "You're the cutest I've seen so far today!"

Touko felt her cheeks burning, which irritated her. _When_ had she been able to blush that hard? As far she remembered, she hadn't blushed in her life. She just seemed _incapable _of it, incapable of being embarrassed to the blushing point. Every time she'd been embarrassed, Hilbert had always said that she hadn't been blushing at all. But now, at such a simple comment, she blushed?

"We - we're not a couple," she stammered quickly. Her sandwich suddenly looked so much more interesting than it had been before, so she grabbed it and took a large bite to purposely miss Hilbert's and the waitress's reaction.

"Yeah, we really aren't, ma'am," said Hilbert. "Just best friends." Since Touko was looking down, and focusing on chewing, she couldn't see his face. But he sounded amused. _How does he remain so calm? _she thought to herself, taking another determined bite of her sandwich.

"Really? That's too bad," said the waitress, who seemed to be amused as well. (She also sounded quite skeptical at their denial.) "Well, I guess I'll be off then. If you need anything, call for me."

She left, and Touko spent the next few minutes taking bites of her sandwich, chewing slowly to stall out the time. She was now feeling extremely awkward - never before had she been teased in any way for liking Hilbert in _that_ way. They'd both agreed when they were children that they would support each other like brother and sister. That's what she'd always thought of their relationship - a brotherly-sisterly bond.

"Some waitress, huh?" Hilbert spoke up, and she peeked up. He still sounded amused, not awkward at all. "Getting into people's personal business."

"Yeah," she agreed, chewing the last bit of her sandwich. "Boys and girls can just be friends, you know?"

"Definitely," he said, and continued drinking his soda. Touko took a sip of her own, smiling as she felt the cool liquid trickle down her throat. A lot of people she knew hated fizz (Bianca and Cheren included), but she personally loved it. Why? She had no idea.

By the time they had finished, it was already afternoon. They dumped their trash into the trash can, before heading back into the café and out the front.

"So what else can you do in this city?" Touko asked, as they wandered away from the café and down a street.

"There's the gym," Hilbert said, a twinkle in his eye. She laughed in return. "I don't think I'm ready for that yet."

Now Hilbert paused on the street, counting off places on his hand. "Um, there's always shopping malls if you want to do some shopping. Get some clothes, trinkets, things for your pokemon. There's the museum I went to - that's worth a visit. We could check out some warehouse sales, if you'd like. Uh...the movie theatre? You could start exploring Pinwheel Forest? Or, the battle club!"

"Shopping," she said, almost immediately. No, she wasn't in it for the clothes. (She didn't really care about getting new clothes, unless they were quality trainer clothing.) But the thought of getting some souvenirs, items for her pokemon...that was quite tempting. She wanted to do something with the money she had. Then, the battle club sounded tempting too.

"Shopping it is," Hilbert agreed, grinning. "C'mon, Nacrene Square's got the best selection of stuff - and it's pretty big!"

* * *

_Pretty big _was an understatement.

To Touko, it was more like large, or huge, or ginormous, or humongous, _or so-unbelievablely-big-for-a-town-girl's-brain-to-process-because-it's-so-damn-huge._ Yes, that last one fit it perfectly.

The mall towered over them, and loads of people were coming in and out through the automatic sliding doors. The building was painted bright colours, shades of pink and blue and orange; advertisements flashed on screens attached to the building. (_Until next Monday - all bracelets 20% off! ... Find the perfect accessory for your pokemon today for under five hundred pokedollars!_) She couldn't stop staring as Hilbert dragged her through the doors.

The inside was, if possible, even more overwhelming. The doors led to a large lobby, with stores surrounding all sides. From what she could see, there were five floors, all filled with stores. Shoppers walked around; some quick, some wandering. A large fountain was in the middle of the lobby, decorated with a large statue of a victini.

"Food and restaurants on the first floor, pokemon related items on the second floor, clothing on the third floor, department stores and small companies on the fourth floor, and miscellaneous on the fifth floor," Hilbert read aloud, from a large directory hanging above the fountain. "Where are you going?"

"Second floor, and then fourth floor, probably," Touko said, eyeing the sign as well. "Maybe I could get something for my pokemon to hold, I dunno."

"No clothes?" he said teasingly. "Well, I think I'm going to go to the third floor. I've been wanting a new bag - mine's splitting at the seams a bit. I could do with a bigger bag, too."

She shrugged. "Maybe I'll come to the third floor later, but for now I'm leaving. See ya!" she added, waving as she headed towards the escalators.

_Maybe_, she thought, _Maybe I should get some new clothes._ As she stepped onto the escalator and held on to the railing, she glanced down at her outfit. Her shorts, white top, and vest were all quite dirty-looking, with stains and wrinkles on them. She had packed extra clothes, though. _Right?..._ Touko thought, beginning to dig through her bag.

Apparently not.

_A visit to the third floor, later then_, she thought, stepping off on the second floor. Stores surrounded the floor, again bringing an overwhelming feeling to the brunette. She saw stores selling things you'd find in a pokemart (_super potions and hyper potions - best quality here!_), stores selling accessories for your pokemon to wear (_be prepared for Nimbasa City's musicals - win stylishly!_), stores selling _anything_ that was pokemon related. (She even saw a store for transforming potions - apparently they could make your pokemon temporarily transform into a different species.)

"I want some items that would boost my pokemons' stats or something," Touko muttered to herself, walking down a hall filled with stores. She paused in front of one - a quite large store, brightly lit, with music flowing out. A lot of shoppers were in it, which she took as a good sign. The sign read in big capital letters, _Kyla's Accessories_, the words in white against a khaki background. _Find the perfect accessory for your pokemon, while boosting stats! _The sign read, in smaller print under the title.

Touko's frown immediately turned into a grin._ Just what I need!_

Seeing that many shoppers had released their own pokemon out, now matter how big (one shopper had a large darmanitan with him, which kept snorting fire out), Touko released all three of her pokemon. "Follow me, and don't cause any disruptions," she told them, and all three nodded.

She spent a very long time in the store, checking out all they had to offer. There were different sections in the store, categories based on what kind of item you wanted. She was drawn to the section advertising evolution stones, but she had no use for any. (But she couldn't help staying there for a little longer to admire the dawn stones and water stones - they were just too pretty!)

She was also attracted to the gem section, selling gems based on type that would boost your pokemon's attack once, before becoming useless. (They would still retain their pretty look, though.)

"Wouldn't your milotic look stunning wearing this?" asked a lady who was selling the gems, seeing Touko examining them, and Calypso who accompanied her. She was holding up a pretty dark blue gem, nestled in a small jewelry box. "It will boost your milotic's water-type moves, while making it look quite stylish! You should consider a grass gem for your snivy, and an electric gem for your blitzle too!"

At her words, Tempest looked more alert. He stomped a hoof and snorted, looking delighted. Jade looked interested as well, perking up from her spot on Touko's shoulder. Calypso made a soft humming sound, as the brunette trainer hesitated.

"Um..."

It sounded quite tempting, but she didn't know if it was worth it. In the end, she bought all three gems, thinking _why not_. Tempest looked extremely happy, at least. She fixed the electric gem on his mane, where it glittered to match the electricity sparking in his mane. And she had to admit, it looked quite good on him.

After purchasing a few more accessories, Touko left the store. She checked out a few other ones, and purchased a miracle seed for Jade, as well as a mystic water for Calypso. But the store was out of magnets, which she would've bought one for Tempest.

"Sorry, Tempest," she told her blitzle, as he gave her a pouting look. "I'll buy you a magnet whenever we see one, okay?"

At last, Touko came out of the last store and headed up the escalator. Now for... clothes. She knew she really _should_ get a change of clothes, but she was determined not to buy anything if it was too fancy.

Finally, Touko stopped in front of a store. The glowing gold letters spelled _Unova Outfitters_. The store was quite large, had glass display windows, and wide open doors. Again, many shoppers seemed to be inside the store. Slowly, she stepped forward. _Please let there be casual wear that isn't super fancy!_

_Relieved_ was the word to describe her after her first glance around.

Yes, the store had its fair share of fancy, top-notch, designer clothes. (Including things like coloured skinny jeans, lace tops, patterned skirts and dresses.) But Touko found a section of the store, labelled Casual Wear and Sports Clothing; exactly what she'd been hoping for. Plain coloured tank tops, based more on comfort than style, hung on racks. She also saw sports shoes and tees, as well as denim shorts (_more comfortable than your regular denim wear!_), sweatpants, and more.

After browsing for a while, and remembering that Hilbert was probably waiting for her, she ended up purchasing a light powder blue coloured tank top, a pair of white denim shorts, a lavender sweater (for colder weather), plain black leggings, and some accessories. Stuffing everything into a bag, Touko thanked the cashier and set off.

She found a bench in the hallway and sat down, before calling Hilbert on her XTransceiver. He picked up, but it was hard to hear him over the background chatter.

"Where are you?" she shouted, straining to hear him.

"Food court!" he shouted back. "It's about five thirty, by the way."

"You can go on ahead, I'm still planning to do some shopping," she said loudly. "Still haven't been to the department stores yet. I'm planning to stay here for the rest of the day, and then I'll reserve a room at the pokemon center."

"Alright, sounds good," Hilbert said, grinning. "See ya later, then."

He hung up, and she did too, before wandering off to the escalator to reach the fourth floor. She couldn't tell whether there were more people than before, or less. It seemed many had left, but many more had come.

She visited several stores on the fourth floor, but didn't purchase much; she had spent a considerable amount of money today. Thanking a store assistant at the exit of a store, she left, and headed back down the escalators to the first floor.

It was now almost seven, so Touko decided to head to the food court and get something to eat. _Oh, how I missed burgers!_ she thought, as she stood in line of her favourite restaurant back in Nuvema Town. Her mother sometimes used to take her and her friends there for a treat.

Luckily the line wasn't too long, and soon she had placed her order for the burger she always got (and a milkshake to go along). As she waited, she bought some pokemon food from a nearby store, and let her pokemon out.

"Number twenty nine, your order is ready!" came a voice from the counter, and Touko jumped. She left Jade, Calypso, and Tempest there for a moment, telling them sternly to behave. To her relief they did, sitting calmly when she returned.

The burger was delicious, just as she remembered, and the same could be said for the milkshake. Touko cracked a smile, imagining what her mother would say if she saw her diet._ "Honey, you need your vegetables - that's too much junk food!" _Her mother's shrill voice echoed in her head.

Tempest gave her a pout and whinnied as she continued sipping on her milkshake. His message was clear, even without her being able to understand what he was saying - _I want some! _He gave her the lillipup eyes, and she barely managed to say no.

But she ended up giving in, and got three more straws. All of her pokemon immediately began sipping on theirs. Touko watched, a little smile on her face.

"Don't expect treats from me all the time!" she warned her pokemon, putting on a serious and firm face. "It's not healthy."

Tempest just snorted.

* * *

Touko left the mall roughly an hour later. The sun was beginning to set as she headed outside, but plenty more shoppers were still heading into the mall. Her next stop was the pokemon center, where she'd reserve a room.

_How many nights do I need? _she wondered to herself as she walked. She was planning to challenge the gym, but was she ready? There were also plenty of other things she wanted to do in the city, though. She was definitely going to visit the battle club tomorrow - that sounded like good practice.

Then there was the movie theatre, museum, and then Pinwheel Forest as well. That was going to take up at least two days. Then she needed a gym battle ...

As she walked, Touko spotted several warehouses with their doors wide open, and signs saying things like "Warehouse Sale - everything under five hundred pokedollars!" That reminded her - Hilbert had suggested checking out the warehouse sales, too.

Up ahead, the pokemon center came into view, surrounded by several more warehouses. A steady flow of people were walking into it, and Touko joined the line of people at the nurse's desk.

"Good evening. How may I help you?" the nurse was asking, and one by one, people sat down, left through the sliding doors, or went off to find their rooms. Finally Touko arrived at the front of the line, and the nurse smiled wearily at her.

"Good evening. What can I do for you?" the nurse asked, sounding very tired. Touko felt a pang of sympathy - she'd probably been sitting there for a very long time, tending to people's requests.

"I'd like to reserve a room, please," she responded. "Three nights, please."

"Alrighty...here's your key." The nurse took a key out of her desk, before typing something into her computer. Touko took the key with a gracious thanks.

"Room eleven, should be on the left," the nurse yawned. "Have a nice evening."

Touko thanked her again, before setting off to find her room. It turned out to be quite similar to the room she'd had back in Striaton City. Dropping her bags on her bed, she turned to look at the time. Almost nine o'clock.

She placed her pokemon's pokeballs on the table, and stood for a moment, silently admiring them. A while ago, she'd had only one pokemon. Now she had not one, nor two, but three! She took her hat off as well, and left it beside her pokeballs. Her fingers tugged at the hair tie keeping her ponytail up, and her chocolate curls tumbled down over her shoulders as she successfully removed the hair tie and tossed it onto the table as well.

"Maybe a bath would be good," she yawned to herself, and took off her ankle boots before walking into the bathroom. The bathroom's conditions were better than she'd expected - the bathtub was quite big, and several bottles of shampoo, conditioner, and body wash were left on the sink counter. (As well as some lotion and soaps.)

She spent a long time in the shower, relaxing in the hot water as she hummed softly to herself. The bathroom had also provided towels (thank reshiram), and she stepped out, wrapping one tightly around herself as she did so.

Touko decided to put on her new clothing - her vest, white tank top, and shorts were lying in the bathtub - she was planning to scrub them later. Luckily the new blue tank top fit nicely, and so did the white denim shorts. She slipped her feet into a clean pair of striped socks, and walked over to the hairdryer attached to the wall.

While she attempted to calm her mass of tangled brown curls, she called Hilbert. He picked up after quite a few rings, rubbing his eyes. His hat was off, and his head appeared to be lying on a pillow.

"I was trying to sleep," he groaned, and as he determinedly closed his eyes, she couldn't help a giggle.

"Well then, I'll leave you to sleep," she answered, sticking out her tongue at him while his eyes were closed, before pressing the _hang up_ button.

But soon Touko's own eyes were growing heavy, and she retreated to her bed. Within five minutes, she too was fast asleep.

* * *

Touko woke up bright and early next day. She was determined to go check out the battle club, and get some training done; maybe after she could go watch a movie or two.

"I hope you're rested up - we've got lots of battling to do today, so be ready!" she told her three pokemon, when she called them out in her room. Calypso made a contented humming nose, Jade crossed her arms and gave her owner a smirk, as if to say, "What are you talking about? I'm always ready", and Tempest stomped his hooves in excitement, looking extremely happy. That was when his mane started to glow very brightly, and he accidentally sent a small shockwave out from it, knocking out Calypso and leaving both Jade and Touko paralyzed for a few minutes.

The faint glow from the electric gem in his mane faded.

Jade gave him a stern talking-to afterwards she had recovered from her paralysis, from what Touko could hear. "Sni, snivy snivy vy!" the snivy had said, while crossing her arms. Tempest had replied with a hasty "Blitzle, blitzle blitz!"

The brunette quickly reassured Tempest that it was okay, he hadn't done it on purpose. That made the blitzle look considerably happier, and she quickly stepped back to avoid another shockwave, suppose it came. It didn't, to her relief, and Touko returned her pokemon to their pokeballs before setting out of her room.

She stopped at the nurse's desk to ask where the battle club was located. The nurse seemed happy to tell her, and handed her a map of the city.

"The battle club is there," the nurse told her, circling a dot on the map with a pen, marking it with the initials 'BC'. "See the pokemon center? It's right there" - she circled another dot, labelling it 'PC' - "that's the pokemon center. So you should walk south and keep going south."

"Thanks," Touko answered, giving the nurse a grateful smile. She kept studying the map as she walked out of the pokemon center, making sure she was following it exactly. She walked for a while, and turned into another street. There was a large, green and blue building surrounded by trees in front of her, with a pokeball logo on it. Underneath the logo, in big block letters, read _Nacrene Battle Club_.

Touko broke into a run, a grin spreading across her face. The glass doors slid open as she approached, and she ran through to find herself in a small lobby. There was nobody there, but there was a potted plant in the corner, and a tablet-like device attached to the wall. A flat-screen T.V hung on the wall, and was currently on the newsfeed channel. A lady wearing glasses was explaining the threats that wild ducklett had on Driftveil Drawbridge.

Curious, Touko walked over to the tablet, and saw a list of trainer profiles on it. She tapped one with her finger, and the screen changed. It displayed several small paragraphs of text about the trainer, a photo of the trainer (in this case, a grumpy looking teenage boy), and a few pictures of their pokemon.

A shout suddenly echoed in the building, and she spun around, gaze searching the lobby. There was a door over there, and a hallway...perhaps there were trainers having a match somewhere. Leaving the tablet device, she walked over to the door, and peered into it.

There wasn't any battle going on, nor did it seem to be the source of the shout. The room appeared to be a training gym, complete with weights, exercise bikes, treadmills, and many other complicated looking pieces of equipment. A few trainers were in there, their pokemon working with them.

She moved on to the next door, which led to some stairs going down. Further into the hallway was a washroom, an office, a cafeteria/lounge, and then some large doors leading to a large room.

_The battlefield!_

Two trainers (a boy and a girl) stood on either sides of the battlefield, and there was a bulky man with a mustache standing at the side. A dewott was running towards a watchog, removing both scalchops from its body. Curious to see more, Touko pushed open the door and entered, her eyes still fixed on the battle.

The dewott had successfully landed its attack, and the watchog swayed before collapsing onto the ground.

"Watchog, no!" the boy shouted, and on the other side of the battlefield, the girl smirked. "Told ya I could beat ya, Thomas."

The bulky man raised his arms. "Watchog is unable to battle. Dewott is the winner, so the match goes to Lydia!"

There was polite applause, and Touko looked up, realizing there were balcony seats above. Several trainers were sitting down, and when the battle ended, got up to leave. She returned her gaze to the battlefield; Lydia and Thomas were shaking hands, and the bulky man had started to walk over to her.

"You a new trainer here?" he barked, and Touko nodded nervously. The man's face broke into a warm smile, and he said, "Welcome, then. My name is Don George, and I run this battle club. Would you like to register as a battle club member? Once you do, you can begin to battle trainers here, and you'll be welcomed at other battle clubs around Unova. We welcome all trainers, regardless of experience."

"I'd love to, sir," she responded, starting to grin. "How does it work?"

"I'll take you to sign a form of agreement right now, and you'll have to show me your trainer card," Don George said. "Then we'll get you a battle club ID card. Lastly, you'll have to register yourself on that device in the lobby - you know which one I'm talking about?"

When she nodded, he clapped his hands together. "Great. Follow me...what's your name?"

"Touko," she said, quickly.

He led her out of the battlefield, down the hallway, and into the office. She sank into a chair to wait as he went into a separate room to fetch her a form and a pen. Once he returned, she grabbed the pen and immediately started to fill it out. It asked for basic information, like her hometown, age, gender, etc. Scrawling her signature on the bottom of the page, she handed it back to Don George.

He scanned the form briefly, then stamped something onto it. "It's official, then," he said, giving her a handshake.

"Welcome to the battle club."

* * *

**AN**: This is definitely what counts as a filler chapter, I guess? More Touko and Hilbert time (SHOPPING!), as well as some relaxation for poor Touko who keeps running into Team Plasma! I kind of wanted to have a more relaxing chapter, with Touko having some time to just do stuff and explore. I also tried to expand some more on details here, so hopefully I did an okay job with that!

The gym battle will definitely be next chapter, that I know for sure. I'm not sure if I should take the game or anime approach for describing the gyms - I kinda like the idea of having to battle several trainers before you get your gym battle, but I'm not sure. I _did _take the game approach for the Striaton Gym - should I keep doing it? As you can tell from my incorporation of the battle club, I'm mixing in elements from the anime, though this is mostly a game-verse story.

Again - thank you both SeleneHime and Alphinia! xD You both have great constructive criticism - I was a little undecided on how to approach the whole "protagonist easily beats all trainers" scenario in the games. Not going to elaborate, but Touko has some losses to look forward to in the next chapter ;)

Hehe, we'll probably get some scenes of Touko attempting to ride Tempest once he evolves...that'll be fun to write, haha. The feedback on Cheren from both of you helped a lot; I realized afterwards how non-competitive I was portraying him before! He'll be stepping up his game soon, I promise.

As always, I love seeing reviews, and whatever support you give to me on this story (whether review, favourite, or follow) I totally appreciate! :)


	9. Chapter 8: The Harder You Fall

Touko's fingers flew over the screen's keyboard as she typed in choice information about herself. Behind her, Don George chuckled as he watched.

"You've almost filled up your page," he told her, as she stood back to look. She had registered herself on the device, and had her own trainer page added to the list. A smiling photo of her was placed in the centre of the page, and her newly-typed paragraphs of information framed it. The bottom of the screen displayed pictures of Calypso, Jade, and Tempest.

"Is that good?" she asked, and Don George chuckled again. "It's perfectly fine. We'll leave it at that if you want, and then you can start training or battling."

At that, the brunette perked up, starting to grin. "Already?"

"Exactly right," said Don George. He leaned over, and tapped a combination on the screen. It beeped and flashed green, before returning to the homepage. "There we go - it's locked, so no one can edit pages anymore."

He turned to her. "So, what would you like to do now? Battle? Train in the gym, or swimming pool with your milotic?"

"There's a pool?" Touko was impressed. "But I think I want to battle someone right now. How does it work, exactly...?"

Her question trailed off, as Don George returned to the screen and began scrolling down the list of trainers, stroking his mustache thoughtfully as he did so. Touko peered over his shoulder, and realized something about the trainers' names. Each trainer had a certain amount of stars beside their name. Some had three, some one, some six, and the highest she saw - eight. Her own name had one.

"What are those stars?" she asked, and Don George didn't look up when he replied. "The stars represent your amount of gym badges," he said, eyes still fixed to the screen. "That's how we match up trainers for battles, based on the number of badges. That way, it's somewhat fair."

He tapped on a trainer's profile, and glanced over it. "Looks like Seraphina's here right now. She's got one gym badge as well - here, take a look."

Muttering a thanks, Touko moved over to read the profile. The photo showed a teenage girl with blond hair and blue eyes, grinning a mouthful of braces at the camera. She looked really quite cheerful. Apparently she had an oshawott and a pidove on her team, and enjoyed battling. A green circle next to her name had text beside it saying, _Currently in the building._

"We can tell who's in the building, because our device picks up signal from your battle club ID card," Don George explained, seeing her puzzled expression. "We can call her right now and request a battle, if you'd like. This device connects to XTransceivers."

Still scanning the profile, Touko nodded. "Okay, I'm ready."

Don George pressed the call button on the screen, and the screen changed into a loading screen while he moved forward to look down at it. A moment later, there was a beep, and a girl's face appeared on the screen, grinning up at them. She very closely matched the girl on her trainer page.

"Got a challenger for me, Don George?" she asked excitedly.

"Indeed I do," said Don George, smiling. He moved back and ushered Touko forward. "Here she is. She's got one gym badge like you, and she's new to the battle club."

Seraphina grinned widely. "I'm Seraphina, but most people just call me Sera. So you've got one gym badge too, huh? Are you hoping to train for your second badge? That's what I'm doing."

Touko nodded. "Yep - I heard about the battle club from my friend."

She suddenly realized that she hadn't introduced herself yet. "I'm Touko, by the way. Touko White - from Nuvema Town."

The girl on the screen gasped. "I've always wanted to visit Nuvema Town! I've heard that it's very rural, and near the sea. It'd be a nice change - I grew up in Castelia City, you see. Completely the opposite of rural - it's the largest city in all of Unova!"

"Wow - " Touko started to say, but Don George interrupted with a small cough.

"Let's not spend the whole day chatting, shall we?" he chuckled. "Seraphina, are you ready for a battle?"

"Never been more ready," she responded, flashing him a peace sign. "Alright, meet you two in the battlefield - I'll be heading out of the training gym now, I guess."

She hung up, and the screen returned to her trainer page. Touko straightened up from the device, and turned to Don George. He nodded to her and said, "Well, come along. You know where the battlefield is now, I presume?"

She nodded. They both set out walking, and soon were in front of the doors of the battlefield. Don George pulled them open, and ushered Touko in.

"You can take your place at one of the sides of the battlefield," he suggested, following her inside. "We'll just wait a few minutes for Seraphina."

She nodded again, now feeling slightly nervous. Her hands had started to sweat during the trip to the battlefield. She hadn't battled for a while, and how experienced was Seraphina? Maybe she only had one badge, but she could be really talented. Tempest had a type advantage over both of Seraphina's pokemon, but she hadn't trained him up at all. What if he wasn't strong enough?

_Quit it_, she chided herself. _Stop worrying_.

Her thoughts were interrupted as the doors were flung open again, revealing several girls in gym outfits. The first girl she recognized as Seraphina - the girl's blond hair was tied up in a high ponytail, and a big grin was plastered onto her face. The other girls she didn't know, but they were obviously Seraphina's friends.

Seraphina waved at Touko, and headed to her spot on the other side of the battlefield. "Good luck, Sera!" one of the girls was saying, before flouncing over to join the crowd of other girls. They glanced briefly at Touko, but didn't say anything to her relief, before heading up the stairs into the balcony seats.

Touko turned back to face Seraphina, clutching Tempest's pokeball in her hand. So Seraphina had a crowd of supporters...that did _not_ help out her nerves at all. Her hands had started to sweat even more rapidly, and she quickly wiped them on her tank top.

"You two are both familiar with the rules, I presume?" Don George called out from his position on the sidelines. Both Touko and Seraphina nodded, and Don George smiled.

"Then let's see your pokemon!" he declared. Seraphina wasted no time - she threw a pokeball, and out came an oshawott. This was no surprise for Touko; she tossed Tempest's pokeball, with a determined look on her face.

"Blitzle, blitz!" Tempest whinnied, upon coming out. He stamped a hoof, and spotted oshawott. The pokemon's face lit up, probably at the prospect of meeting a new friend.

"Tempest, this is your first pokemon battle," Touko told him, petting his mane. "Don't freak out, don't overwhelm yourself. It's okay if we lose. Just try your best and have fun, okay?"

"Blitz," he agreed, tossing his head.

She straightened up to face Seraphina; the girl was talking to her oshawott too. She gave Touko a thumbs up, and nodded at Don George. "We're ready."

"You may begin!" Don George proclaimed, and immediately Seraphina called, "Use tackle, Pearl!"

The oshawott sped towards Tempest, surprising Touko with its speed. "Intercept with shockwave!" she shouted, desperately praying it would work.

But it was clear that Seraphina's Pearl had a huge level and experience advantage over Tempest. The shockwave barely stopped the oshawott in its tracks, before it kept going and rammed into Tempest, sending him back and onto his back.

"Tempest!" Touko cried, dismayed. Seraphina's oshawott looked triumphant, and no more tired than before; Tempest, on the other hand, was struggling to get up. A look of determination was on his face, but he seemed to be breathing quite heavily.

"Water gun blitzle into the wall, then follow up with tackle!" Seraphina commanded next, grinning widely.

Pearl grinned a grin to match its trainer's, before shooting a jet of water straight at Tempest. "Dodge!" Touko said desperately, and she felt a pang of relief when Tempest skidded out of the way. But her relief was short-lived when Pearl simply redirected her water gun, hitting her blitzle full force. She saw his hooves dig into the ground in an effort to stand against the attack, but as his strength gave away he was flung back into the wall, just as Seraphina had wanted.

"Now tackle, to finish!" came Seraphina's call from the other side of the battlefield, and panic rose in her.

"Get up, Tempest, and interrupt with shockwave!" Touko shouted, now positively feeling hopeless. She watched hopelessly as Tempest sent a small shockwave at the oshawott, before he was knocked out by a direct tackle. Cheers were heard from the balcony seats, and Don George was declaring Seraphina's oshawott the winner, but she barely heard them.

_It was my fault,_ she thought numbly, as she ran over to Tempest. He looked upset, and very tired. I_ shouldn't have set him up against Seraphina's oshawott. Now he'll just feel useless, when it's my fault that I didn't bother letting him train._

"Good job, boy," she whispered, as he was sucked into his pokeball. She slipped it into her bag, before straightening up and taking Jade's out. Seraphina was waiting, and to Touko's relief she wasn't gloating about her victory.

"Jade, it's your turn!" Touko said, as she tossed the pokeball. Her snivy came out, crossing her arms upon her release, and gave Pearl a cool look. Despite being upset, Touko couldn't help but smile at her pokemon's attitude.

"Ready?" asked Don George, and both trainers nodded. "Then begin!"

"Vine whip, hurry!" Touko commanded quickly. She didn't want Seraphina to start out the battle like before - even with a type advantage, she was cautious of her oshawott.

The battle seemed to be going well, with Pearl sustaining several vine whips from Jade. The oshawott was starting to look tired, and Touko was starting to get a little cocky. As Jade landed on her feet after another vine whip, she commanded, "Use vine whip one last time!"

But something strange happened just as Jade leapt into the air. Seraphina's oshawott had started to glow blue, and when Jade tried to lash down with her vines, she was flung back into the ground. As Touko watched, she realized with panic that oshawott was evolving. It was growing bigger and taller, and when the blue light faded away, a dewott stood in its place.

"Dewott! Awesome!" Seraphina exclaimed, pumping her fist. "Pearl, can you do a razor shell?"

_Razor shell! Oh crap,_ Touko thought immediately, as the dewott started to run at Jade. It removed both scalchops from its body, and both scalchops were glowing blue as well. Jade was still struggling to get up. Touko cried, "Jade, watch out!"

She didn't have to look to realize that Jade had been hit. Her snivy let out a cry of pain, as she was flung back, this time into the wall. When she hit the bottom of the floor again, her eyes were closed and she did not stand up again - she was obviously knocked out.

"Snivy is unable to battle, so dewott is the winner!" Don George said, to cheers from the balcony. Seraphina's dewott landed back on its feet, looking very tired, but still standing. Touko returned Jade to her pokeball, feeling even more numb than before. She'd been so sure that Jade was going to beat Seraphina's oshawott - now dewott - but she'd suffered another loss. Touko rolled Calpyso's pokeball between her fingers, her heart thumping silently. _Pansear, let's show them that type advantages aren't everything! _Chili's words echoed in her head. He'd been right after all.

"Calypso, you'll be fine," she told her milotic softly, hiding the panic on her voice. "Dewott's almost down - a water pulse should be enough. A couple more on her pidove, and the battle's won."

"Milotic," Calypso agreed, looking peaceful.

If only she could feel as relaxed as her pokemon.

The battle started again, and dewott, though tired, seemed to be fighting as fiercely as it could. A couple of razor shells hit Calypso, before it finally collapsed from a well-aimed water pulse. Touko didn't realize she'd been holding her breath, and let it out when Seraphina stepped forward to return her dewott. Now there was just a pidove left.

"Go, Ana!" Seraphina called, throwing a pokeball. Just like Touko had expected, a pidove materialized onto the ground, and hopped up and flapped its wings.

"Pi, pidove!" it cooed, fixing a steely gaze on Calypso.

"Start out with air cutter!" Seraphina commanded. Her pidove flew into the air and began flapping its wings hard, sending currents of razor-like winds straight at Calypso. The serpentine pokemon tried to dodge, but was battered by the attack before she could. _If only the battlefield was underwater,_ Touko thought, biting her lip.

"Use wrap, Calypso!" Touko called. If she was thinking correctly, maybe a tight wrap around the pidove would stop it from using its flying attacks, since it wouldn't be able to use its wings any longer.

"Stay in the air, Ana!" said Seraphina, shooting a look at Touko. "Don't let the milotic get you with wrap!"

"A nice water pulse, then!" Touko decided, nodding at Calypso. "Hit her out of the air!"

The brunette watched, eventually starting to grin, as Calypso's water pulse landed successfully on Seraphina's pidove. Ana's bubble popped, and the bird pokemon was left to fall to the ground, looking dazed.

"Air cutter, once more!" Seraphina said determinedly. Gritting her teeth, Touko knew that the girl had probably realized that Calypso was a slow mover on the ground, therefore Ana's air cutters were more likely to land.

"Intercept with wrap!" she called, crossing her fingers. If Calypso could get to Seraphina's pidove before it started to attack, that would prevent it from attacking.

Calypso slithered forward and lunged, but in the time that it took to do that, Ana had flown into the air, and was launching an air cutter while hovering above Calypso. Though dewott had been strong, Touko could tell that pidove was stronger. Her milotic swayed back as the attack landed, and hissed in pain.

"Get in close for a quick attack, and one more air cutter to finish!" came Seraphina's call.

"Dodge!" Touko cried, panic beginning to set in again. Obeying her command, Calypso quickly slithered back, but quick attack was a very hard-to-dodge, almost impossible to dodge move, she reflected bitterly. In a mere second, a gray blur streaked through the air and rammed into Calypso.

"Water gun pidove away!" Touko commanded quickly. If Calypso managed to stop Ana's attack, it was possible she could turn the battle around.

"Dodge and do your air cutter!" Seraphina retaliated, her voice echoing loudly. The water gun managed to hit her pidove, but it managed to right itself and fly back, dodging the rest of the attack, before launching a barrage of razor-like wind straight at Calypso.

Touko knew without watching that her milotic wouldn't be able to dodge, even as she shouted for her to. Calypso swayed, and fell over onto the ground.

"Milotic is unable to battle, so pidove is the winner!" Don George shouted. "That means the match goes to Seraphina!"

_No,_ Touko thought, as she fumbled around in her bag for Calypso's pokeball. She couldn't have lost _that_ easily with so many type advantages, she couldn't have just been -

"Beaten like the rest of 'em, Sera!" said a girl sitting in the balcony. Touko automatically glanced over, seeing several of them jumping up in down in excitement. They were obviously pleased for Seraphina.

"Thanks for the battle, Touko!" Seraphina said cheerfully; she was returning her pidove to its pokeball, and had straightened up. "Hey, listen - I'm heading back to the gym with my friends - want to come, later? We can train together! Our dewott and milotic could do some training together in the pool!"

Touko forced a smile onto her face. "Er, yeah, that sounds good. Maybe I'll come."

She pretended to be busy organizing her bag as Seraphina and her friends left, determinedly ignoring the voices of her friends saying things like, "You were so good, Sera! That girl had two type advantages, and she _totally_ blew it!" and "Pathetic - a snivy and a blitzle weren't enough to take down your dewott!"

She didn't hate Seraphina - no, it was nothing like that. She admired her, actually. But Touko was angry at herself for screwing up so badly. Her panic had gotten the best of her, and even though she hated to admit it, the other girls had been right. It _was_ pathetic of her, having two type advantages, yet still losing.

"Ready to go, Touko?" Don George asked softly. He had come up to her, seeing that she was taking a while to leave.

She nodded, adjusting her bag on her shoulder. "Yeah. Thanks for helping me find a battle partner, Don George."

He smiled in return. "It's always my pleasure to help new battle club members. I should be off to my office to deal with some things - why don't you see what you would like to do now? I'm sure you won't have any trouble finding another battle partner now that you know how it works."

Touko thanked him again, before setting out of the battlefield. She paused in the lobby, unsure of what to do next. Should she join Seraphina and her friends?

A look at Calypso's pokeball in her hand gave her an answer - she had to make a trip back to the pokemon center before she did anything else.

* * *

"Thank you for waiting - here's your pokemon, all healed and healthy!" The nurse smiled at Touko as she handed her pokeballs back.

Touko thanked her quickly, before setting out again. She was planning to go back to the battle club and train, whether Seraphina was there or not. (The trip back to the pokemon center had taken a while, and she still had to make the trip to the battle club, so it was possible Seraphina had already left. It didn't really matter.) Training, so far, was her top priority.

The day had grown fairly hot, and she dug out her water bottle from her bag as she walked. _Too bad I didn't refill it with cold water,_ she thought, wrinkling her nose as she took a sip of the warm liquid. _Hopefully there'll be a vending machine somewhere in the battle club._

Touko made it back to the battle club in good time, and Don George was in the lobby when she entered. He was talking to a boy who looked a bit younger than Touko.

"But sir, can't you please lend me a pokemon?" the boy was pleading.

"I'm afraid not," said Don George, putting a gentle hand on the boy's shoulder. "I'm very sorry, but I can't."

"If my father can see how good I am with one, he might finally let me go on a journey when I'm thirteen!" the boy said, sounding a bit bitter now. "He told me I'm not allowed to go on a journey after what happened to my sister, you see. Gramps gave her a pokemon; she was always his favourite. Father refuses to have both of us go on journeys after what happened to it - "

"Give him time," said Don George, sounding firm but sympathetic. "A lot can change in two years."

"My father won't," said the boy, stubbornly. "You don't know him."

"I'm sorry, but I don't have the permission to," Don George answered; this time, his tone made it clear that the conversation was over. "You live nearby, don't you?" When the boy nodded, he gave him a firm little push. "Then I trust you'll make it home safely by yourself. I hope to see you soon, as a pokemon trainer. I'm sure your father will change his mind."

His tone held no sarcasm, yet the boy snorted as he turned to leave. His crimson eyes startled Touko as he pushed roughly past her, sending her stumbling against the wall, and strode through the doors.

Don George sighed once he'd left, and caught sight of Touko, who was against the wall.

"Touko," he greeted warmly. "You're back."

"Yeah, I was just at the pokemon center to heal my pokemon," she answered, straightening up. She didn't ask about the boy - maybe it was something Don George was sensitive about. That boy had seemed quite angry, though.

Don George raised an eyebrow. "You _do_ realize you could've done that here? We have a device similar to what they use at pokemon centers here in the office, which trainers use to heal their pokemon after battles."

"Oh."

It seemed so obvious now - of _course_ they would have something like that, to avoid the inconvenience of having to travel to the pokemon center and back constantly. The more Touko thought about it, the more stupid she felt. She laughed feebly. "Well, now I know!"

"Indeed you do," said Don George; he looked deeply amused. "Well, I'll leave you to your business now, shall I?"

He waved and left, turning around the corner, heading somewhere. She watched him go, before heading off herself. She wandered around for a bit, thoughts occupied, before she realized she'd been walking in circles. Shaking her head to clear her thoughts, Touko headed towards the gym, and pulled open the door.

Seraphina's gang was gone, and there were only three trainers occupying the big space. Touko headed towards the treadmills, deciding that her pokemon could do with being a little more fast. She stepped onto one, and found the start button. Pulling Calypso's pokeball out of her bag, she sent her milotic to the treadmill beside hers.

"We're going to work on our speed, since the battlefield definitely won't be underwater," she told Calypso, who nodded her head in response. "Ready?"

They started out slow, and Touko wasn't having any trouble. Calypso was slithering forward; the pokemon's brows were furrowed. As the speed increased, her milotic began to have a bit of trouble, and as it got much faster, Touko began to have trouble, too.

_The harder you fall, the stronger you rise_, she told herself, over and over, as she stumbled on the treadmill. _The harder you fall, the stronger you rise..._

* * *

According to the nurse in the pokemon center, the Nacrene Gym was only a couple of blocks away.

Touko's fingers had started to sweat in the time that it took to walk there. About a week had passed since her battle with Seraphina in the battle club, and she'd trained up a lot ever since. She'd lost several more battles, which had fuelled her motivation to train. A recent XTransceiver call with Hilbert had revealed that Lenora - the gym leader - had a watchog, which was apparently a pain to beat. Then she had a herdier, the evolved form of lillipup. Touko had no type advantages over her, but she didn't know if that was a good or bad thing.

_At least it won't look pathetic if I lose, _she thought, before mentally berating herself for thinking that way.

She wasn't going to lose. She couldn't afford to.

Touko crossed another street and squinted ahead, seeing a large, white building up ahead. It was surrounded by trees, and looked quite majestic. She stopped in front of it, catching sight of a sign. _Nacrene City's Museum and Gym_, the sign read.

_A museum?_ she inwardly mused. _It must be the one Hilbert talked about._

"Touko! Wait up!"

She paused, her hand on one of the door handles, and turned around. A familiar blonde was running towards her, dress flapping in the wind. She stopped right beside Touko, catching her breath.

"I was told from Hilbert that you'd be challenging the gym today," Bianca babbled, once she'd caught her breath. "I just got here earlier this morning from Striaton City; I did get my gym badge, by the way. I don't have anything to do right now, so I decided to come along to support you! Not that you need it, of course, but guess what - challengers get a free tour around the museum, and they're allowed to bring a friend! That's what I'm here for, Touko! Of course there's still the entrance fee, but there's no escaping that, it benefits the museum anyways, so I'd gladly pay. I was really worried when I was running here, I kept thinking, 'Oh dear, what if I'm too late?' But I'm glad to see I'm not, on time for the first time in forever!"

She drew in a deep breath, as if about to continue, but Touko interrupted her, chuckling slightly.

"I get it, Bianca. Look, let's waste no time, shall we?"

"Oh no, of course not!" the blonde said immediately, skipping past her and pulling open the other door. She beamed, holding it open. "Ladies first!"

"You're more of a lady than I am," Touko pointed out, a smile tugging at her lips.

"Oh, whatever!" Bianca pouted. "Okay then - challengers first! How 'bout that?"

Laughing, Touko made to walk in, but before she could she saw that someone was coming out of the open door. And it wasn't just _someone_.

It was N.

She stopped short where she stood, staring at him. He was looking around dreamily, before his gaze fell on her. She couldn't tell what her first feelings were in the moment their eyes met - was it fear? Shock, that out of all people she ought to run into, it was him? Confusion?

Horrified, she found herself getting lost in his blue eyes. She shook her head, and met his gaze again with a glare. "What do you want?"

"You're N, aren't you?" Bianca piped up, from behind her. N ignored her, and kept looking at a Touko.

"You're different...I can sense it," he murmured, more to himself. Touko was now frowning at him - he was making no sense at all. "I...I want to see things no one else can see. The truths of pokemon inside pokeballs... The ideals of how trainers should be. And, finally, a future where pokemon have become perfect..."

By now, Touko and Bianca were both staring, mouths wide open. N looked as if he was not expecting them to answer, and continued on.

"Do you feel the same way?" He seemed to be talking more to Touko than Bianca.

"I don't know, just let us pass," she growled in return, stepping forward. But before she had gotten very far, he had flung out a hand which captured her wrist. He was surprisingly strong.

"I'll get help, Touko!" Bianca yelped, and ran into the museum past N, who didn't make a move to stop her. His gaze was still on Touko, even as she heard Bianca's voice arguing with the museum assistants inside.

"I want to hear the voices of your pokemon," he said, at last. He pulled out a pokeball. "Let me show you my friends. Show me yours."

"I don't want to fight you," Touko snapped at him, struggling in his grasp. "Listen to someone else's pokemon."

He didn't let go, and for the first time, fear settled in her. _Bianca better get back quickly!_ She didn't dare take her eyes off N - who knew what he'd do?

Just as N tossed his pokeball, there was a shout. Touko looked up in relief to see Bianca and some museum assistants running out, all holding pokeballs in their hands.

"Let go of her, sir," one of them, a woman said sternly. "We order you to."

To Touko's surprise, N did without complaint. He stepped back without saying a word.

The woman looked taken aback, like she had expected a fight. Her right hand, which was clutching a pokeball, dropped to her side. The other assistants did the same.

"Please leave my friend alone," said Bianca, now stepping forward bravely. The blonde looked determined, and she was the only one who still held her pokeball in a ready position. Touko felt a rush of affection for her.

"I need the power of zekrom," was all N said in return. This caused murmurs of confusion among the assistants, and Touko's eyebrows shot up her head. Zekrom, one of the legendary dragons?

He was walking away before any of them said anything, and the woman who had confronted N straightened up.

"We best get back inside," she said briskly, and stepped back into the museum, along with her other assistants. Once they had gone in, Bianca turned to Touko.

"He'd better leave us alone," she said, before brightening up. "So how about that tour?"

Touko shook her head slowly. "Sorry, Bianca, but I really want to get to the battle now. Is it okay if we get to the tour afterwards?"

The blonde faltered, but her cheery smile returned. "That's okay! Come on, let's go!"

And Touko let herself get pulled in, smiling to herself.

* * *

What she didn't expect was a library.

Lenora and Hawes led her straight to the back of the museum, where they entered through a large door that Hawes tapped a password into. Bianca was sent to enter a separate room, where she'd be able to access the balcony.

The door had slid open, and revealed not a battlefield, but a room with shelves crammed full of books. Lenora and Hawes led her through it, and they stopped beside a bookshelf. For a few moments they were silent, until Touko got the hint.

"I didn't come here to read," she protested, now looking up at Lenora. The gym leader looked amused, but didn't budge.

"You'll have to, if you want a gym battle," Lenora answered, with something like a smirk on her face. She rested her hand on the spine of a book near her. "I recommend reading this one. This'll be your best bet if you want to save some time."

Touko followed her gaze, seeing a quite thick book on the shelf under Lenora's hand. The title on the spine read,_ A Long and Extended History on the Unova Region_. Normally, she was not so against the idea of reading, but history books bored her to death. And Lenora was telling her she had to read it to get her battle?

She looked back up at Lenora, who was still smirking in that amused way, studying her. Something didn't seem right. It seemed like Lenora knew something she didn't. The more Touko thought about it, the more something seemed off. But what else was she to do?

"I guess I'll read it," she muttered at last, reluctantly walking towards Lenora. The gym leader stepped back, and Touko reached up. The moment she started to tug the book off the shelf, the shelf started to move. With a startled gasp, she jumped back, watching with wide eyes. The bookshelf was moving up, revealing stairs in the ground. It stopped moving with a slight creak, and all was still.

"I...what?" was all Touko managed to say. Lenora chuckled, and she and Hawes exchanged a look.

"Welcome to the battlefield," was all Lenora said, in response. She was still smirking, and as Touko continued to gape, said, "You see, Touko, I've been testing you since you entered this building. You probably thought everything would be straightforward, didn't you?"

The brunette nodded slowly.

"I like to set up my gym differently from others," Lenora explained. "I don't like to have my challengers battle other trainers before they reach me, so I can see their battling techniques. What I prefer is to see a trainer's personality play out way before the battle begins, so it gives me an idea of how your personality affects you in battle, not the exact portrayal."

"What she means, Touko, is that she likes to be surprised by a trainer's battling style," Hawes cut in, smiling at her.

"You explained that perfectly, dear," said Lenora, putting a hand on her hip. "Most challengers, when I tell them that to get to their battle, they have to read up, choose books that they're interested in, or small ones that look quick to finish. I, however, show them the quickest way to get to my battlefield. How a trainer reacts to that gives me an idea of how you'll act in battle. And you, Touko, seemed to be thinking the whole time, trying to figure out exactly what my intentions were. You're a thinker, aren't you?"

She turned to face Touko, with a challenging smile on her face. "I'm excited to see how your thinking affects your moves in battle. Are you ready to go?"

Touko nodded determinedly, and Lenora started down the stairs, Hawes behind her. It was dark, but they emerged into a brightly lit battlefield, closely resembling the one back in Striaton City. Touko took her place at one of the sides, and Lenora took the other.

"The gym leader must only use their designated pokemon, but challengers are able to substitute, should they feel the need to," Hawes began. "The battle ends when either the challenger's pokemon are unable to battle, or the gym leader's. Upon the challenger's win, they will receive the Basic Badge and a TM."

He stepped back, and Lenora tossed two pokeballs into the air. Out came a herdier and a watchog (as expected).

"These are my two pokemon, Touko," Lenora said, flashing her a grin. Her herdier yipped playfully. "For now, I think I'll be using herdier. Watchog, return!"

She held out one of the pokeballs, and the watchog was sucked into it. That left herdier in the field. Who would be tougher to beat - herdier or watchog? Touko considered her choices, and pulled out Tempest's pokeball. He was much stronger now, and she wanted to give him a chance to redeem himself.

"Tempest, come on out!" she shouted, and in a flash of red light, her blitzle materialized on the ground.

"Blitz, blitz!" he whined excitedly, stomping his hooves.

"Ready, Tempest?" she asked, and her blitzle nodded in return, looking eager. She directed her gaze to Hawes, who was standing in the referee's spot. He raised his arms high, and proclaimed -

"Let the battle begin!"

* * *

**AN**: I'm sorry it took so long, it's been two weeks ah oh my goodness! I've been quite busy with trips, camping, work, and etc. I'll try my best to keep up with weekly updates if I can, and I should be able too - school's almost over for me, which is awesome! Thanks to all of you who are keeping up with this story :)


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